


Stars for Each Other

by maraudermuckups



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fans & Fandom, Alternate Universe - Idols, Fluff, Getting Together, Humour, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, San is not a member of ATEEZ, Some angst, The rest are as is, ~mildly~ slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-20
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2020-05-15 08:39:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 24,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19292176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maraudermuckups/pseuds/maraudermuckups
Summary: San had, truth be told, thought that he would be able to navigate his entire life without ever ending up in the middle of a crowd at a fansign event for an idol group he barely knew. And yet, here he was.Somehow, it didn't end up so bad in the end.-o-In which San falls hard for Wooyoung, and there's really no going back from that point.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Y'all I am back with another fic and this time it has chapters ! 
> 
> (Does the title come from Promise? Why, yes, it does. Do I still suck at naming fics? Absolutely!)

Truth be told, San had thought that he would be able to navigate his entire life without ever ending up in the middle of an overexcited crowd, predominantly made up of teenage girls brandishing large cameras. And yet, here he was, doing his best to stay near the bag he had shoved under his allocated chair with his cousin’s words echoing in his head. 

“ _San!”_ Minhee had begged, pulling at his arm, “ _Please! I just need you to do this one event. I can’t let my fans down, but my professor is going to kill me if I miss my maths exam._ ” She looked at him with simpering eyes. _“You’re the only one I know who can use a camera and come out with decent pictures!_ ” 

_Damn Minhee, and damn her fansite_. There were a thousand places that he could have been instead of this fan event. Seeing his friends, maybe, or meeting the woman who would be supervising his long-distance master's dissertation. 

Having finished his university degree in Seoul six months ago, San had returned to Namhae to help his mother to look after his father who had grown progressively sicker over the past two years. His chemistry degree allowed him to find a local job, and a long-distance, part-time masters degree programme let him continue to his education while he helped his parents. 

The winter holidays had brought two weeks of leave from his job, and the opportunity to stay with his aunt and uncle in Seoul and visit his university friends who lived local to the city. And, somehow, he had ended up stuck in the middle of a fan sign event for a band that he had only heard of in passing.

_Damn Minhee_. His cousin’s fansite was her pride and joy; it was no wonder he had been dragged into it sooner rather than later. When Minhee’s university exams, San knew she was fully aware that begging him to go instead would never fail. He had never been able to refuse her. 

The noise in the hall doubled and San flinched. The camera in his hands was awkward and bulky, but he fumbled it up to his eye just in time to take a few, blurry pictures of the seven boys walking on stage. 

“ _Take pictures of the blond one!”_ he recalled Minhee saying to him, “ _My site is for Seonghwa._ _He’s the only one with blond hair at the moment. So, so handsome. You can’t miss him.”_

Out-of-place and completely lost, San raised the viewfinder to his eye again and tried to zoom on the stage. His stomach dropped. There were two different blond men. 

All around him, cameras shutters snapped as fans took endless streams of photos. 

San glanced between the two of them, the camera flickering with him. “ _The handsome one,_ ” Minhee had said. San’s stomach did an awkward belly-flop. They were both gorgeous. He immediately regretted not looking up a guide to who was who and prayed to God that they would introduce themselves. 

It was dizzying switching between the two of them. 

He was not let down. The men bowed on stage and yelled their greeting into the hand mics they each carried. San watched down the line as they each gave their name and a short, sweet message that was lost on him. 

Seonghwa appeared half-way down the line. San could see where Minhee had been coming from. He was the taller of the blonds and held himself with a poise that was almost intimidating, and had a devilishly beautiful face that was so photogenic it wasn’t fair. 

But, the next boy, the other blond, Wooyoung, was gorgeous. Flawless skin, luminous smile, sparkling eyes. San could not have kept his eyes away if he had tried. His heart beat in his chest like a drum. If there was such thing as love at first sight, then San was sure he was a goner with, he guessed, another few thousand fans. 

In all honesty, all of them were good looking. And, as they moved into a short showcase for their dance, they met each beat with a rigid perfection that made San shiver. He trailed his eyes across them before turning back to Seonghwa. He was here for Minhee, and Seonghwa was the target of his camera. 

“Black shirt with white buttons. Seonghwa, black shirt with white buttons,” San chanted under his breath. It almost worked in time with the song.

A girl standing next to him gave him a strange look. His cheeks turned red and he sewed his lips together in an effort to refrain from saying anything more. 

With Minhee’s camera, he followed Seonghwa to the starting position of the dance. His eyes continued to flick back to the other blond boy, though. His dance form was fluid and San saw gold and felt air filling his chest whenever he looked in Wooyoung’s direction. 

And, God, the music. As a part-time student, full-time employee who lived in the last place any idol group would visit, San had never had a great interest in following idol groups. He respected them and the work they did - God only knew how tough it was - but they always seemed too distanced from San’s reality to be commanding of his time. Now, though, San could see the appeal.

Although not the type of music San usually listened to, it was hard hitting and the lyrics weaved a message around the audience. The rapping and singing worked in harmony, as simultaneously simple and complex as the moon and stars. 

His finger ground to a halt as his gaze finally fixed on Wooyoung for good. He could not stop watching. It was as if his gaze had been superglued to each of his jumps. The group was a drug, and it only took one song to have San aching for more.

ATEEZ rounded themselves into the centre of the stage as the song ended, all puffing hard. Through the viewfinder of Minhee’s camera, San could see the sweat that made their foreheads glisten, fighting a losing battle against their makeup. 

San gazed at them, and guilt bubbled in his stomach as he realised how few photos he had taken. Already drafting his apology lament to Minhee, he took a few, shaky photos as the members made their way to their seats, grinning at the crowd that cooed at them in adoration.

In a sudden, mass exodus to the left of the room, the first row of people moved across the room with albums clutched in their hands. San lowered the camera and watched them, cluelessly. Not for the first time that day, he wished he had paid more attention to what Minhee had said would happen. The first few, narrow rows of chairs were deserted as their occupants shuffled towards a half-formed line.

Everything was moving so quickly. It seemed that everyone except San knew exactly what they were doing and where they had to be. Already, there were people beginning to ascend the stage. The camera doubled in weight in his hands. 

San’s head buzzed with it all. There was so much going on that he struggled to string it all together. There was a reason why he had avoided these type of events his whole life; he was always five steps behind everyone else and completely lost. 

The rows ahead of him were left more-or-less clear, and he had a clear view of the raised table. _Prime photography time_. 

San zoomed in on Seonghwa and relaxed again. For each dazzling smile and finger heart, he pressed his finger down and hoped that the result would please Minhee. In the meantime, he could not stop his eyes from swinging to Wooyoung, who sat next to Seonghwa with a pair of rabbit ears on his head and a ludicrous pair of rainbow glasses. 

He was beautiful. The camera slipped in his direction more often than San was willing to admit. Lost in the warmth of Wooyoung’s smile, he barely noticed the line of fans beginning to dwindle until he felt a finger tap his shoulder. 

“Sir?” 

San’s head snapped towards the voice, his stomach growing cold again. 

“Sir, did you want to line up?” A man dressed all in black with a name tag that indicated his membership in the event staff gestured towards the line. “Your row has been called up.” 

San took a second to process his words. “Line up?” he repeated and glanced at his left. “Line up. Okay, right, um.” He stuttered over his words and the camera dropped to his lap. 

“You should go up now,” the man said again but wandered off before San could say anything in response. 

When Minhee had told him that he would be a fan sign, he had known in theory what it involved. He had not got as far as putting the pieces together in relation to himself. The thought of going up to the table made him feel sick. He didn’t even know their names, save for Seonghwa and Wooyoung.

But his thoughts drifted to the album that Minhee had shoved into his bag. “ _Just give it to them,”_ she had said, “ _I’ve bookmarked all the pages. They’ll know what to do_.” 

San placed the camera on the seat next to him and reached under the chair. Grabbing the bag he had slung there before, he pulled the album out. Sure enough, assorted post-it notes with names scribbled in perfect handwriting clung to the pages. 

In quick succession, he put the camera into its case, stashed the bag under his chair and made his way to the line with no confidence left to him. There were only a dozen people in front of him, and that prospect terrified San. He had no clue what to say to a celebrity. The most famous person he knew was, technically, his cousin if he went by followers, but these were idols. They were in a different league.

His stomach rolled and his knuckles all turned white from clutching the album too tightly. Each person that climbed the three stairs onto the stage left him a minute closer to the desks. He could not recall a similar feeling since he had been about to walk into his final university exam. 

Finally, he was at the front of the queue and sitting down in front of a handsome man he had no name for. Mute, he handed the album over. 

“Thank you for coming!” the man said. He flicked to the post-it that, presumably, had his name on it. San peered at it upside down. _Yunho_. “It’s your first time, right? I don’t recognise you.” 

San blinked at him and felt his face beginning to turn red. He felt completely idiotic. “First time, uh, yes,” he said. 

“What’s your name?” Yunho asked, scanning over the page where Minhee had written his name. He circled something on the post-it note in response to a question San had not read. 

“San.” He watched Yunho writing a few lines underneath the option he had circled. “But, please write a message to Minhee.” 

Yunho perked up at the name. “Minhee? Seonghwa’s fan?” He grinned, and San’s heart was weak. It skipped a beat and then thundered into an irregular rhythm that San was certain no heart should ever perform. “I wondered why she wasn’t here,” he said. San thought it was probably more to himself than to him. 

“She’s got a maths exam,” San said. He clenched his hands in his lap, attempting to ground himself. It was a mission that he had already lost. 

Yunho’s face brightened even more if that was possible. “You speak Satoori! Where are you from?” 

San swallowed and watched Yunho scribbling a messy note to Minhee next to a photo of himself. He cursed himself for not sticking to standard, like he was normally able to do in Seoul. “Namhae. It’s, uh, in South Gyeongsang.” 

“It’s so pretty down there,” Yunho said earnestly, “We’ll visit again quickly so we can see you there.” His eyes glittered as he handed the album back to San. 

A soft bell rang and Yunho said his goodbyes as San moved onto the next member. He was lucky that Minhee had organised the post-it notes. He was even luckier that all of the members were talkative and more than happy to carry the conversation. 

San let it all pass him by like sand through his fingers. How did Minhee do this so often? And, how the hell did she make eye contact with any of them? San could not even talk to them without feeling like his heart was going to explode. He knew that there were no ‘unattractive’ idols in theory, but it was something else when he was sitting half a meter away from them.

San had accepted he was gay years ago. He fully embraced the identity and had even had a boyfriend for a short year-and-a-half in university. Never, though, had he been so acutely aware of how gay he was until he was faced with seven celebrities whose job it was to be unattainably handsome. Then, he ended up at the end of the line, in front of Wooyoung. 

“Hey!” Wooyoung chirped, accepting San’s album with both hands. “What’s your name?” 

Mouth parched, San struggled to force an answer out. Wooyoung smiled at him with the patience of an angel the entire time. If San had spontaneously combusted there and then, at least he would have done it knowing that he had been on the end of Wooyoung’s smile. 

Was it even possible to fall for someone so fast? San dug his nails into the palms of his hands. _Repressed gay energy,_ his cousin would have told him with a laugh, _find a new boyfriend already_. 

“Did you like the album?” Wooyoung asked as he replied to the post-it note on his page. “What was your favourite song?” 

San’s heart froze as the air in his body was knocked out of him. “The, uh,” he stuttered over his words, every part the bumbling idiot he felt, “title track.” He could not even remember the name of it.

Wooyoung’s grin brightened. “I like it, too!” He held up his hand, and it took San a second to realise he was asking for a high five. 

San regretted everything as soon as he returned the gesture. His hands were clammy beyond belief, and it was a wonder that Wooyoung did not recoil from it. Instead, he felt Wooyoung hold his hand there for just a second

“What did you do to your hand?” he asked, peering at the bandaid that wrapped around San’s index finger

San looked at it too. He had forgotten that it was there. “I cut myself while making dinner,” he said. Butterflies migrated en masse to his stomach. “Not the best cook.” He managed a stilted smile that, he imagined, came across as more of a wince

“Ah, you should be more careful!” Wooyoung said with a grin. “Can’t have our Atiny getting hurt."

Nodding dimly, San tried to not let Wooyoung’s eyes bore any deeper into his soul. The air was oddly thin as Wooyoung’s hands brushed over his again. It was not that none of the others hadn’t skimmed past his hand, but none of the others made him as breathless as Wooyoung did.

San refused to read into that.

By the time he was staggering down the stairs to find his seat again, San’s knees were threatening to collapse beneath him. His face was so red that he was sure he could have passed as an Elmo look-alike with flying colours. The album trembled in his slack grip

“Oh, my God,” he muttered under his breath in an endless loop. His hold on the album tightened as he sat again. “ _Shit, shit, shit._ ” He slumped into his seat and stared at his free hand. There was nothing remarkable about it, but he swore he could still feel Wooyoung’s lingering touch. Or, maybe it was his imagination

As his chest began to loosen, he found the determination to swap the now-signed album and Minhee’s camera again. Its weight stopped his hands from quivering so badly but did little to prevent the way the lens stubbornly floated in Wooyoung’s direction every few minutes

For good measure, and in a prayer that Minhee would not immediately catch onto what had happened, San took a few photos of each member. Minhee might give him hell for it, but nothing would stop him from pilfering those images from her SD card. They were all unfairly attractive, but Wooyoung had San at his mercy. He _needed_ those photos if only to relive that singular minute of butterflies, embarrassment and Wooyoung’s fingers touching his hand

_God, he was done for_. San clapped a hand to his forehead and tried not to moan.

Almost an hour later, he walked out of the room with his stomach in knots. None of the members glanced in his direction for longer than a second since he went up. So much for the cliché idol-falls-in-love-with-me-after-we-make-eye-contact story. A pity, really; San could have done with a boyfriend. Particularly one as gorgeous as Wooyoung

Preoccupied with his phone, San trudged to the bus stop. On the internet-browser, he scrolled through a long post on the ATEEZ members. Midway through a list of facts about Mingi, Minhee’s number buzzed into life on his screen

San glanced around himself quickly and moved to the side of the street. He answered the phone with a sigh. “Minhee,” he whined.

“Sanie!” Minhee called back. “How was it?”

Sighing louder, San shut his eyes. “I’m _so_ screwed.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's my birthday (well, technically it is in times zones further behind than UTC-2) and it's been a week since the last update so, here you go, enjoy! Let me know what you think ♡♡

“Oh, my God, this is so sad.” 

San sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Please shut up.” 

Minhee let out a high-pitched burst of laughter. “No, but look!” She jabbed a finger at the screen. “Literally every second photo is of Wooyoung. You’re so screwed.” 

“Please don’t remind me.” San pushed himself off Minhee’s bed and stood behind Minhee’s chair. Her computer sat in front of them both, the SD card that San had used plugged into it. All of his photos were projected onto the screen. 

Minhee scrolled through them slowly, immediately deleting the blurry ones, cropping a few down and categorising others various files to be edited later. Wooyoung’s face shone in HD for the sixth, seventh, eighth time in a row as Minhee continued to flick through them. 

“What was going through your head when you took there?” Minhee giggled, putting yet another photo into a file named _San is whipped for Wooyoung._ Finally, Hongjoong appeared on the screen, grinning at something left of where San had been sitting with the camera. 

He watched in despair. San had no recollection of there being so many pictures of Wooyoung. As far as he had been concerned, he had stopped himself whenever he noticed himself getting distracted and turned back to Seonghwa, or some other member trying desperately to wipe the blush off his cheeks. 

Another photo of Wooyoung flashed to life and San covered his eyes with a hand. “End me,” he moaned. 

“I’m enjoying this too much, though!” Minhee added the image to San’s file. “Besides, I’ve seen the music that you’ve been listening to lately.” She swivelled the chair around and gave him a shit-eating grin. “You’ve had ATEEZ on repeat. You’re in so deep and it’s literally been three days.” 

San bit his lip. He could not fight that. Their music was good and the more he listened to it, the more he fell in love with the compositions and each member’s unique vocal colour that pulled the songs together. Minhee was right. He really falling down the rabbit hole of following an idol group. Somehow, that thought did not scare him as much as it had done before. 

Minhee pushed the lid of her laptop down and walked to her bed. Flopping down onto it, she patted the edge of it and waited for San to sit next to her. 

“Tell me you’ve watched their KQ Fellaz series,” she said, staring at the ceiling. As she spoke, she reached the pocket of her jeans and pulled out her phone. It buzzed with incessant notifications that, San guessed, were probably from her fansite. 

San shook his head. “Haven’t really watched any of their stuff.” Aside from their music videos, San had avoided their reality shows. Perhaps it was shallow, but he would rather avoid falling any further for Wooyoung than he knew he already had. He’d had too many experiences with falling for people who he never had a chance with. He did not need to add an idol to that list. 

Minhee gasped in exaggerated horror and pulled up the youtube app. For a moment, she was silent as she filtered through searches to find the series. “If you’re going to be a fan of them, I’m going to pull you down with me all the way. You know that, right?” She sent a bright smile at him and giggled lightly. “But, actually, I’m going to teach you everything about them.”

“Save me,” San said, voice monotonous but with warmth bubbling in his stomach. 

Minhee pressed on the video and dragged San down to lie by her side. The phone wobbled in her grip a metre above their faces. San eyed it, wary. “I swear to God, if you drop your phone on our faces…” He disguised a laugh as a cough at the thought as Minhee rolled her eyes and rolled onto her stomach, dragging San with her. 

“Okay, now watch.” Minhee pressed a hand over San’s mouth when he tried to reply and turned the volume up on her phone. “I told you that you’d love them, but,” she gave San a strange look, “I would have put money on you being screwed over by Yeosang."

San glared at her and shoved her shoulder. Minhee only laughed. 

Almost three hours later, Minhee had given him a running commentary all the way through the _KQ Fellaz_ series, and for a good portion of their _Logbook_ videos, too. And, San had been right. Those videos were even worse than just listening to their music on repeat. At least then he had not been emotionally tied to their happiness and successes. 

_God, San was so screwed_. 

“Minhee, they’re going to kill me,” San moaned as he rolled onto his back again. “It’s only been three days and they’re already halfway there.” 

Nodding, Minhee looked conflicted between having empathy for San or laughing at him. San could not blame her; he was well aware of how pathetic he sounded. He was a twenty-two-year-old university graduate who was currently trying not to cry while watching ATEEZ’s first win.

Then, her the corners of her lips turned up. “Okay, but, if they’re going to kill you, at least make sure you do it all the way. Go hard or go home, right?” 

San turned to look at her. “What do you mean?” he asked, carefully measuring each word as he said it.

“I have exams coming up in two weeks, right?” 

“Right…” 

Minhee’s eyes glinted as she grinned. “How about you become my photographer for the next two weeks while you’re up here? That way, I can study and you can make sure you get in way too deep for your own good.” 

San’s stomach turned inside out. “What?” he squeaked. “ _Minhee_?” 

“No, but it’ll work perfectly,” Minhee said, bringing up the calendar on her phone. “You’re going home on the 15th, right? Well, there are nine events before then that I’ve got into, so you just go to all of them. Most of them are only a few hours long, so you’ll still have heaps of other time free.” She gave San a mournful look. “That way I can study. I need to pass my exams with an 80% average to retain my scholarship.”

San’s forehead creased into a frown. “I mean….” He sighed as his thoughts drifted to softness of Wooyoung’s hands again. “I guess I can make that work. As long as you don’t mind missing out…” 

Minhee shook her head. “I’ve been to so many of their events. I’ll survive for two weeks, and if it means I keep my scholarship, it’ll be totally worth it.” 

San gave her a small smile. He did not have the words to explain what he felt, but he thought she understood as she pulled him into a hug. 

“By the way,” she said quietly, still crushing her arms around his waist, “If you don’t get some pictures of Seonghwa, then there will be bloodshed, okay?”  She pulled away and grinned at him. “But, anyway, I'm the best cousin, right?” 

“He said he missed you, by the way,” San said as he rolled his eyes.

Minhee moaned and clutched her chest. “Oh, my God, my heart.” 

True to his word, twenty-two hours later, San found himself drawing from a lottery for his seat number as he waited outside the doors that barred him from the ATEEZ fan event. Armed with Minhee’s camera and more of her questions bookmarking the pages of the album, he tapped his foot on the ground and chewed on his cheek. It felt like his stomach had gone to static. 

The shuffling and murmured around him suddenly increased as the doors opened in front of them. San clutched his bag tighter and pressed forward into the writhing masses. It did not take him long to find his chair and he dumped his bag underneath after withdrawing the camera from it. 

As ATEEZ walked onto the stage with smiles that made their faces glow, San’s breath stuttered in his throat. He lifted the camera and took a few, distracted photos before lowering it again. Swallowing, he stared at them and did his best to ignore his heart suddenly doubling in pace. It was more difficult than it should have been; each beat was magnified in his ears like he was listening through a stethoscope. 

Wooyoung grinned on stage and San felt his insides melting into goo. He captured a few shots of him and promised himself he would remove them before he gave the camera back to Minhee. As long as she had her group pictures and individuals of Seonghwa, he had no reason to be ashamed of the quickly increasing number of Wooyoung. 

The second time around, it wasn’t so scary. For one, he knew the general direction of the event and where he had to be at any given stage of it. For another, he could suddenly relate to the other ninety-nine people in the hall when they cooed and moaned at the members. Or, at least he could in spirit; San’s mouth was dry and he had not spoken since he had entered the hall.

Lining up, though, was no less terrifying than it had been the first time. He knew the members and all their music by now, but his new-found love for them counteracted any sense of reassurance that gave him. His stomach plummeted as he waited, bouncing his foot in an effort to let out some of his nervous energy. 

A security guard beckoned to him and gestured to the table. San swallowed as he looked up at it, and his legs shook as he took the few steps towards the chair. Mingi was first this time and grinned at San in recognition. 

“San, right?” he asked, grinning at him and accepting the album when San passed it to him. 

San nodded. He had spent more hours than was probably healthy trawling the internet and reading about fans’ experience with fansigns, so he knew Mingi had an impressive memory for people who came to their events. Hearing his name come from Mingi’s mouth without prompting, though, was a feeling that San could not put into words. There was a suspicious buzzing in his ears as the rest of the world seemed to blur into a morose background.

Mingi circled an answer on Minhee’s post-it note, and then looked back up to San. “It’s been a long time! I’m glad you came back.” San’s heart imploded when Mingi’s eyes shimmered at him. He did not have the heart to tell him it had only been four days. “It’s always really nice to see our male atiny.” 

San nodded and in a blurt of words he had no control of, he spilled. “Minhee’s got exams, so I’m coming to all her events for two weeks.” The urge to vomit rose quickly; _Why couldn’t he ever keep his mouth shut?_ He sounded like he was there under obligation, rather than because he was genuinely falling in love with the group. San clenched his hands in his lap and opened his mouth to recovery himself,but Mingi spoke over him. 

“It’ll be really nice to see you around, then! I’ll keep an eye out for you.” He beamed at him, before looking down and scribbling a message on the post-it. San watched him in silence, trying to calm himself enough that he would not be an emotional wreck by the time he reached Wooyoung at the other end of the line. 

It was a lost cause. Jongho’s teasing jokes, Seonghwa shifting into satoori to talk when he recognised the lilt that a few of San’s syllables had, and Yeosang’s hand skimming across his as he asked San if his cut had healed assured him of that. He was not helped either by Hongjoong’s small smiles and easy chatter, or Yunho’s insistence on writing a message of encouragement to San when he found an extra sticky note under the one with his name on it. 

Moving into the chair in front of Wooyoung, he was grinning but completely dazed. It was beyond him how Minhee had done this for almost two years, ritually returning to every fan sign, concert and live reality show she could get into. 

Wooyoung waved at San as settled himself in the chair. “Our Sanie returned,” he said, voice bouncing and the light in his eyes making it come alive. “It’s good to see you again!” 

San opened his mouth, but no sound came out. His heart rate doubled as his stomach flipped over itself in a row of cartwheels. _Gay panic_. And, God, he could have done without that thought because his mouth went even dryer as he gaped like a fish out of water. 

Had others reacted in a similar way upon meeting Wooyoung for the first time? He certainly hoped so; otherwise, he would be forced to face his total ineptitude at talking to cute boys who he was crushing on. _Well, at least that wasn’t anything new._

“You’re so flustered!” Wooyoung said, accepting the album from San and flicking a few pages to find his post-it. “You don’t need to be!” He finished signing his messaged returned to looking at San. “Are we going to be seeing more of you?” 

San nodded mechanically as if he ran solely on impulsive answers. His mouth still felt too dry to manage any words and he instead stared at Wooyoung like he was a child who had been caught with his hand in the biscuit tin. 

“That’s good,” Wooyoung said. He was silent for a second, perhaps waiting for an answer before he lapsed into giggles. “You’re very nervous! Don’t worry, it’s cute.” He winked and San could have died there and then and been satisfied with the life he had lived. 

His brain went into a spontaneous meltdown and his mouth snapped shut. Everything felt suspiciously hot as his cheeks flared. Rationally, he knew it was Wooyoung’s job to engage with fans on this level with language that would make them feel special. His hearth could not have been paid a billion won to understand that perspective, though, as it jumped into his throat and competed to become the world’s fasted metronome. 

Wooyoung’s forehead creased in concern. “Are you alright?” he asked, worrying his lip between his teeth. He set the pen down on the desk and reached across the table to tap on San’s hands which were clasped on top of the table. 

San’s world exploded into hyperreality and Wooyoung’s touch lingered for much longer than it should have. He swallowed the lump that had grown in his throat and forced himself to meet Wooyoung’s eyes. “Peachy,” he croaked. 

Wooyoung blinked for a second and then laughed gently. “I’m glad!” 

His laugh was infectious, and San’s face broke into a smile as well. A painful, tight one, but a smile nonetheless. His stomach continued to twist itself into tight painful knots, but his hands loosened a little. 

Rose-coloured glasses on, San hazily watched Wooyoung as he spoke for their remaining fifteen seconds together. He hated feeling so out-of-control and timid. San was so used to being fully present in every moment with every decibel of loud noise and frantic movement possible. Wooyoung stunned him in his steps, froze him into a statue, and it was all so wrong. 

In a daze, San wobbled back to his chair feeling light-headed and vaguely dizzy, unable to think of many ways his minute with Wooyoung could have gone much worse. He had managed a total of three words to Wooyoung and the only sympathy he received from Minhee when he sat and pulled out his phone to distract himself was a few laughing emojis and a message saying ‘ _gay panic, told you lmao.’_

San sighed and dropped his phone in his jacket pocket. Minhee was no help. The same-age-by-early-birthday technicality seemed to show up ten times more intensely than usual whenever she teased him without regard for their one-year age difference. Perks of the Korean age system, San supposed with a small frown. 

He pulled the camera out from his bag and returned to taking photos of Seonghwa. This time, he was determined to meet Minhee’s demand for photos. It wasn’t difficult, either. Each time he looked at Wooyoung, his stomach writhed in embarrassment. And, he was going to do this eight more times over the next one-and-a-half weeks. God help him. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We are now a week and a day into being an adult and I still do not feel like one. I am currently doing a very good job at procrastinating study for all of my exams. Please help... 
> 
> Also, shameless self-promotion, but I've currently got a woosan twitter au running, too. So, if that's your thing, please feel free to check it out [here](https://twitter.com/oonymay/status/1144594684490047488) :) 
> 
> Final point: Mentions of terminal illness in this chapter. If you want to know more about that before reading this chapter, feel free to contact me at my twitter ([here](https://twitter.com/oonymay)) or in the comments of this story. ♡

The problem with fan signs, San decided, was that they always passed too quickly. It was hours of waiting around with his stomach in nervous agony as he watched countless other fans interacting with the members. Then, if he was lucky, he had a minute with each person as he was rushed through them with an album in his hands and his brain in the clouds. 

And over the course of two weeks, San knew he was lucky to have had those accumulative seven minutes, but it did not feel like it had been enough. He wanted to keep coming back, to see their smiles, to feel his heart flip-flop every time they remembered his name without prompting. Perhaps it was a telling that his first introduction to them had been in-person, but it seemed strange to think that he would be sentenced to videos and pictures in just under a week.

He had accepted it but, but facing just two more events, San’s stomach was flipping as he sat in the hall. Minhee’s camera now felt like second nature to him, and he had even figured out to transfer his guilty collection of Wooyoung’s photos before handing the SD card back to her. That in itself had saved him from, he imagined, hours of her teasing.

Perched on the edge of his seat, San watched the stage with his heart in his throat. It was a small event, and he had been lucky enough to draw an early number in the seat draw. Consequently, he was only meters away from the stage where the members sat behind their tables. He lifted the camera and look a few, quick pictures before lowering it again. 

The first row of people began to queue, clearing the space between his row and the stage. San shamelessly gazed in Wooyoung’s direction, unable to look away but occasionally taking a picture as his line of defence. 

Wooyoung scanned through the crowd, eyes sparkling and hands clasped on top of the table. And then, in a flash of lightning that made San’s world implode, Wooyoung’s eyes lingered on him for a second longer than normal. Recognition flashed across his face and he waved in San’s direction. 

San was paralysed, unable to lift his camera to save the memory in an HD standstill, but he felt his face start to flame as his stomach violently contracted. Next to him, a girl giggled and covered her face with her hands. It was like a moment out of the imagine fanfiction blogs that San had stumbled across the week before in a desperate attempt to stave off time before his next event. 

He looked away from Wooyoung a second later. His world had slipped into a rose-gold tint and his hands were frozen on the camera. He could not have moved a muscle if he had wanted to. His heart thudded in his chest as he struggled to swallow past the stitches in his throat. 

Pictures were a lost cause after that. His hands shook almost as much as his fingers were twitching. The only snapshots he managed were blurred. He could already imagine Minhee’s reproachful expression as she struggled to disguise her amusement at San’s inability to compartmentalise his emotions. 

It was no better five minutes later when his line was called to join the queue. The album was bookmarked by sticky notes as always, but in the middle of panicking about analgesics from her chemistry module, Minhee had left the questions written on them to San. After San had coached her through them, she had still insisted that San handled them himself and told him to not let the members address anything to her. 

So, San had sat down with a cheap pen he found in the bottom of his rucksack and envisioned his best handwriting as he wrote down each question. They were nothing deep or difficult, but San’s chest constricted as he thought about them while waiting in the line. It was strangely intimidating to know he was almost fully in charge of the process. Before, he had at least been able to fall back on Minhee's questions or prompts to inspire a thirty-second conversation. 

Going through the members was, as always, a blur. He wished he could mic himself just so he could replay the minute-long conversations for future reference. Without fail, he forgot everything that happened every time except for vague impressions and photos that other people had collected that Minhee later found on twitter and other fan blogs and sent to him. He rushed through Mingi, Yeosang and Yunho before he found himself facing Wooyoung. 

“San!” Wooyoung said as soon as he moved to the chair in front of him, “I saw you in the audience! I’m so happy to see you again!”

San’s mouth went dry, but he forced himself to swallow and he grinned. “I’m glad to see, you, too,” he said as he passed the album to Wooyoung. It was already opened to his page, decorated with San’s small question. 

Wooyoung glanced at it and then looked up at San. His beam was radiant. “The thing I look for in friends?” he repeated, his pen poised above the paper. “Cute and funny.” He wrote each character as he said it, making the answer sound disjointed. San’s heart fluttered as he watched Wooyoung.  He finished signing his page, and San could not help notice that he addressed the page to him by name. It was the first time he had done that. As Wooyoung finished writing the answer, he looked back to San. “Kind of like you,” he said with a small laugh.

San opened his mouth to reply, but could not find the words. A weird, gurgling sound came out of his mouth and he flushed in humiliation. 

Giggling, Wooyoung put his pen down and reached for San’s hands. “We’re going to see you again, right?” 

San nodded slowly. “At the event on Thursday,” he replied in a hoarse voice. He was hyper-aware of Wooyoung’s fingers which were linked with his own. Each movement was magnified ten-fold in his brain as he struggled to maintain eye contact with Wooyoung. 

Wooyoung smiled and rocked their hands back and forth. “Your cousin is dedicated to getting into events! Seonghwa will be excited to see her, again. But, after that, will you come back?” 

“I’ll try,” San said and he hesitated as he withdrew his hands from Wooyoung’s. The sudden absence of his warm skin made San’s chest ache, but he had reached an almost ethereal calm as everything seemed to start falling into place in his head. It was the first time his words had not shaken when talking to Wooyoung. “I really want to.” 

Wooyoung passed the album back to him and gave him a last smile. “I want you to come back, too! Maybe we’ll even try to come to Namhae sometime. That’d be a lot of fun,” he said with a laugh. 

Face cracking into a smile, San accepted the album and ignored the snakes writing in his stomach. He wished he could capture Wooyoung’s face in that second, just to remember that this smile was meant for him. He might have only been a fan of this celebrity like so many others, but for a short second, he felt like the most privileged person in the world. 

He walked off the stage a few minutes later, after talking to Jongho, Hongjoong and Seonghwa, feeling like he was on top of the world. It was as if he was glowing all the colours of a rainbow as he carefully stashed the album in the bag he had left under the chair and returned to picture-taking duty. 

There was no longer any shame in admitting that his pictures were made up almost entirely by Wooyoung’s smiling face. Minhee was a creative genius - why she had chosen to study medicine was beyond San - she would make do with the two-dozen other pictures he had collated of Seonghwa. 

Wooyoung did not look at San for the rest of the fan sign, but San had not expected him to. He was one fan of many and he had come to accept that. At the end of the day, Wooyoung’s job was to make him feel special for a minute and he had achieved that seven times over with flying colours. San just got to revel in those moments while they lasted and try to recall the warmth of his hands that filled his chest with cotton balls. 

The feeling lingered until he climbed onto the bus to take him back to his aunt and uncle’s place. As he sat, he pulled the album out of the backpack and began to flick through the pages that the members had signed. He had asked them all the same question - San had spent hours trying to think of one that did not feel strange to ask them. He could not have faced doing it another seven times, so he resorted to repeating the message on each post it. 

His cheeks ached from smiling as he flipped through the responses, carefully brushing his fingers over them and studying the signatures that were written on the pages. He realised that Wooyoung had not been the only one to address his signature to San. All of the members had used his name, rather than Minhee’s as he had told them to do at a few different events. _Maybe it was the sticky notes, then_. San’s handwriting was small and constructed with long, tall lines where Minhee’s was round and sprawled across a page in perfectly printed lines. 

Seeing his name in their scripts made his legs feel wobbly. When it was addressed to Minhee, it was too easy to position himself as the messenger who got the benefit of seeing ATEEZ. With his name written down, though, San could not stop himself from grinning like he had won the lottery. 

As he turned to Wooyoung’s page, his smile grew even more. There was a heart drawn next to his name, and another next to his response on the sticky note. San touched it and felt his lungs twist as he recalled Wooyoung’s beam as he had written the words down. It already felt like it had not been real, but it always felt like that when he exited an event. 

The rush of adrenalin that sustained him through the hours-long events drained from him as he found his way to the apartment. It left him tired and unable to sort through all the memories that bustled through his mind like people on Myeongdong Shopping Street. 

He let himself into the apartment with the album still clutched to his chest like a child hugged their teddy-bear and was immediately greeted by Minhee’s smirking face. San regarded her carefully. 

“What?” he said, pulling his shoes off and giving his aunt a quick greeting as he walked into the spare room where he was staying. He dropped the bag and album on the bed. 

Minhee’s eyes glistened with mirth. “How come you’re late?” she asked. Her tone was a little too bright to go without suspicion and San frowned. 

“The buses took ages. One was late and the other didn’t show up, so I had to wait for the next cycle.” He sat down on the bed and crossed his legs in front of him. “Why?” 

“You haven’t looked at twitter, have you?” 

San shook his head. He didn’t have a twitter account; he was not ready to make that kind of commitment. He would, however, admit that he had spent more than a few hours scrolling through different search results on browsers where he did not have to log in. 

Minhee pulled her phone out the pocket of her jeans and sat down next to San. Opening the twitter app, she navigated immediately to a page that she had obviously been on just a few minutes ago. The top few tweets she scrolled through all had a red heart underneath them, and one or two had a green retweet symbol, as well. 

“What?” San repeated, peering over her shoulder. 

Minhee was silent as she found the post she wanted. Opening it, she pushed her phone into San’s hands and gave him a smug look. 

San stared at it, lost for a minute. And then he recognised his jacket and the dyed hair. “That’s me,” he said, voice hollow. 

“No, duh,” Minhee said as she rolled her eyes. She pushed his shoulder and then pulled him back and forth a few times. “Why didn’t you tell me that Wooyoung held hands with you?” 

San frowned and passed the phone back to her. “He does that with all his fans, though,” he said, but his stomach flipped, “besides, how are those photos even online yet?” 

“Fans work quickly,” Minhee said giving him a mysterious look. She burst into laughter a second later and flicked through a few of the replies underneath. “And, I mean, yeah I know that most of ATEEZ are pretty relaxed about skinship, but you could have at least told me so I didn’t have to find out through other fansites!” 

He could not stop his mouth from twitching into a smile. “You’re just jealous,” he announced loudly. 

“Damn right I’m jealous,” Minhee complained, “Seonghwa takes _ages_ to initiate skinship with fans at fan signs. I mean, one hundred per cent, I love him for it and I’ll respect his boundaries, but I wish he would start it himself.” 

She giggled as she scrolled through another few replies and San rolled his eyes in response. 

Minhee pointed to a few comments. ATEEZ was not a big group; their following was still relatively small, although growing quickly, and the photo only had a dozen or so replies that had gathered on it during the half-hour since it was posted. “International fans seem to be pretty in on it,” she said. 

San took the phone from her and looked at it. She was right; comments written in English did seem to outnumber those in Korean. He did not expend the effort to read them, instead scrolling back up to the picture series. 

“D’you know if there’s a video at all?” he asked, zooming into Wooyoung’s face. 

Minhee frowned. “Check back tomorrow,” she said and took the phone back to glance at the account. “Yeseul runs this account. She usually takes videos and then captures pictures from that which she posts straight away. The videos usually come out in the days afterwards.” 

“You know her?” San’s tone raised at the end of the question, and he looked at Minhee in surprise. 

Minhee shrugged and gave him a smile. “Sure. Most of us fansites that go to most events know each other. It’s a pretty small fandom so, you know, we work together and stuff. The community is so supportive.” She sighed and a look of longing crossed her face. “Seriously, the people I've met through ATEEZ are my best friends, now. I literally can’t imagine life without them.” 

San raised an eyebrow at her tone but did not comment. It paid off when Minhee turned to him with a suddenly cheeky expression. 

“I also may or may not have texted her and asked her to make sure she got room footage of you because I knew otherwise I’d never get to see you in a complete gay panic when you met Wooyoung.” 

Blinking, San could only stare at her for a second. Then, his brain caught up with his body and he launched himself at Minhee. “You sneak!” He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her onto her back as she shrieked with giggles. 

“It’s gonna be so worth it!” she gasped between outbursts of laughter. As she flipped onto her stomach, she returned attack on him with a vengeance. 

San lost himself to laughter as well as Minhee tickled him to get him to let go of her. “No,” he whined, “Stop it!” He writhed on the bed to escape her until he crashed onto the floor and began laughing even harder. 

Minhee pushed herself across the bed to peer over at San. Her hair was mused across her face but she was grinning more than she had in days. San returned the look as he continued to wheeze. 

And then, his aunt walked into the room. She was frowning and held her mobile phone tightly in one hand. 

“San, come out for a minute, please,” she murmured. 

The fireworks that were exploding in San’s chest stuttered out into nothing and his stomach slowly dropped through the floor that he lay on. Minhee’s chuckles faded into nothing, too, as she watched her mother turn and walk out of the door again. 

“That’s not good,” she murmured and pushed herself off San’s bed. She straightened her t-shirt and pulled San to his feet as they both traipsed into the living room with sunken hearts. 

Beads of panic fired like bullets in San’s brain as he watched his Aunt Jaeeun sit down in a chair like she had gone weak at the knees. Exchanging a look with Minhee, San went to kneel in front of her. 

“San,” she said in a calm voice that did not entirely mask the tremors, “Your mother just called.” 

The last self-resolve San had disappeared as gaze flitted between her and Minhee. An uneasiness from his chest grew into a tidal wave that threatened to obscure him. “What about?” 

“Your father has been readmitted into hospital,” she said. There was no mistaking the worry in her voice, now. It was fair enough; she was his sister. But, he was San’s father, and the urge to vomit swelled as the lump in his throat did too. “Your mother doesn’t want you to worry,” she continued, “But she wants you and your sister to return quickly.” 

Somewhere in his peripheral, San felt Minhee’s hand resting on his shoulder. 

“I should already be there,” San muttered to himself. The laughter from before curled up into smoke as panic began to replace it. “ _Shit_ , I shouldn’t have left him. I knew he was getting worse.” In a blind rush, he scrambled to his knees to push himself to his feet. 

Minhee shook his shoulder a little more harshly. “Don’t say that, Sanie, you couldn’t have known.” She came closer. “You came here on his wishes that you had some time out. C’mon, I’ll help you pack now.” 

His aunt touched his shoulder as he made it upright. “Minhee is right. You can’t blame yourself. I’ll book you a ticket right now, okay. He’s not in immediate danger, but your mother just wants you back in case… in case of… ” She trailed off and pressed a hand to her mouth, unable to finish the sentence. 

San did not need to hear the end of it. He knew what she meant and hurried to the guest room. In a flurry, he pulled his suitcase out of the wardrobe and began stuffing clothes into it. His vision was blurred around the edges and he could feel his breathing speed up. 

“Calm down,” Minhee said, taking his wrists in her hands. She forced him to meet her eyes. “Freaking out isn’t going to help, okay? The overnight bus usually doesn’t leave until nine, so there’s still time. Just take some deep breaths.” She inhaled deeply and exhaled as an example. 

She waited until San was following her breathing to let go of his wrists. “Let’s pack together, okay?”

“He’s got a terminal illness,” San rasped. “He could be dying right now, and I’m not there to help.” 

“And Mum said that your mum said he wasn’t in immediate danger.” Minhee began folding some of the clothes that San had thrown at his suitcase. “If you worry yourself too much, you’re not helping either of your parents.” 

San swallowed thickly, but he could not protest her words. His father had been hospitalised enough times that he knew that she was being reasonable. Even so, nothing could stop the panic that welled inside him every time he heard those words. They had terrorised him for years and he hoped they would continue to do so for years to come. It was better than the alternative.

They packed in silence for a few minutes. San did not have a lot of things; he had only come for a three-week break to see his friends and family. The fact that it had spiralled into something else entirely was irrelevant. 

“I can’t attend that last event,” San said, glancing at the album that the ATEEZ members had signed just hours ago. 

Minhee gave him a strange look. “That’s the last thing you need to worry about, okay? It’s fine.” 

Nodding, San packed it in into his bag. He felt hollow. _What a way to end a two-and-a-half week blur of falling in love with a band._ It was a shuddering reminder of his reality and San swallowed again, desperately trying to stop his throat from swelling more painfully than it already was. 

“It’ll be alright, okay?” Minhee whispered as she wrapped San in a hug. San clung to her like she was a life raft. All he could do was hope her words were true. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so just to cover a few bases quickly: 
> 
> San's father's sickness is not going to be a main plot point and will not be explored extensively in the next few chapters or in the story full stop. It will remain focused on Woosan and their relationship.   
> I'm doing my best to be sensitive to including a terminal illness in this story, and please let me know if there are things that I need to improve upon. The last thing I want to do is to offend anyone.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> !!!! It's been like a month!!! I'm sorry!!! School's been really chaotic and I only have 35 days left for the rest of my life so i'm lowkey really really freaking out rn but !! New chapter !!! I'm really sorry it's so late, but I hope you enjoy it

A month passed quickly. Almost too quickly. Things seemed to speed past San in fast forward and it was dizzying trying to keep up with it all. Namhae was as quiet as it always was, but between balancing his father’s hospital visits, the return to his own job, and doing all the housework he could manage for his mother, he spent almost every waking moment on his feet. 

The first week had been the worst. Rin, his sister, had been there too, but they had lived a precarious balance between hospital wards and their home. Meanwhile, their mother had been beside herself with worry and struggling to figure out what position she had been left in.

Since their father’s diagnosis with early-onset dementia almost five years ago, he had been in and out of hospital. No one said anything, but there was an acute awareness in their household that Choi Jaekwang’s life expectancy was growing ever shorter. The increasing frequency of hospitalisations confirmed that. 

The fall that had landed him in hospital was nothing compared to what he had originally feared when Aunt Jaeeun had pulled him aside. But, the fact remained that an advanced-stage dementia patient needed to be checked over carefully, particularly considering he had hit his head. 

Of course, in the fashion that things always seemed to go, that hospitalisation had been extended to complete more scans, recheck diagnoses and associated symptoms and then elongated once again by a cold that appeared out of nowhere.

Each time he walked into the sterile room and saw his father hooked up to machines and intravenous lines, San had to fight back the lump in his throat. The diagnosis had come as a shock but brought along with it a family agreement to approach with courage. Nonetheless, that didn’t change the uneasy turning of San’s stomach when he realised his father sometimes could not remember him when he walked into the room.

San did his best to maintain a smile, but some days were harder than others. Even with his father cleared to come home today, he wrung his fingers in his lap and, next to him, his mother’s hands were so tightly clasped around her handbag strap that her knuckles had turned white. 

The minutes passed in an incoherent jumble. San would forever insist that time worked differently in hospitals when compared with the rest of the world. The only measure was the flow of inpatients and outpatients, crossing past each other, all absorbed in their own worlds. Sometimes, San stopped to question how each person had ended up in Namhae Hospital. For such a small island, there were so many nameless faces and stories that he would never know. 

San was wrenched from his thoughts when his mother placed her hand on his shoulder. 

“Do you have work tomorrow?” she asked, voice soft. Jeong Aecha was quiet by nature, but the past few weeks where she and San had been the only ones in the house had been bordering on painful. The small, two-bedroom house was always quiet. With Rin having returned to her family in Suwon, San was left to fill the silence by himself. 

San blinked a few times and looked at her. Swallowing to clear his throat, he shook his head. “I’ve got two days off,” he said, “My manager said I should take some time when Dad comes home to make sure everything goes okay.” 

His mother offered him a small smile. It looked painful. “Do you have anything planned?” 

“I thought I might try to do some research from home for my thesis…” San gave her an uncertain glance. “I thought I’d stick around pretty close so I. can help.” Not that he really had a choice. He still lived in his childhood bedroom that he and Rin had shared since he was old enough to move out from his parents' room. In the long term, he dreamed of moving to Seoul, but he was determined to stay in Namhae for as long as he continued to help his parents. 

“Could you run some errands for me? To the mainland?” Aecha asked. 

San nodded without even thinking about it. “Where to?” 

Aecha took his hand and squeezed it tightly. A wordless thank-you. “Jinju. I can give you a list of the things I want you to buy, and I’ll give you enough money that you can buy some lunch there, as well.” 

Wrapping his free hand around his mother’s cold ones, he rested them gently on his lap. He bounced them a few times and then stilled. 

Only a few minutes later, a receptionist appeared with a clipboard of paperwork that she gave to San, while his mother went to give his father the clean clothes she had bought. San sat there in silence, filling out the forms, signing where he could and leaving the other spots blank for his parents. 

San often found himself doing the paperwork. He was the quickest at it but had also specialised in biochemical sciences in university, so he understood the medical details the best. He had no interest in becoming a doctor–he had spent too much time in hospitals already to want to have a job in one–but pathology and pharmacology had piqued his interests when he had still been studying. In fact, they had largely decided the direction of his thesis. 

Just as he flipped onto the last page, his parents reappeared. Jaekwang absently clung to Aecha’s arm, and a nurse walked a few steps behind them. San scanned through the last few lines and pointed out the spots that his parents needed to sign before they walked to their old car. 

Jaekwang watched out the window, but San didn’t know how much he was really seeing. He often seemed to be as distant and quiet as his mother was. It was a stark change from the boisterous man who had lived more in the moment than anyone else San had known as a fifteen-year-old. Sometimes, it hurt to think about how much things had changed. 

The house was dark when they returned with half the curtains still closed. As his mother helped his father around, San whipped around the rooms to let light into them, opened the doors and started on lunch. It was not so dissimilar to the routine that he followed for the past month, and after eating a meal of seaweed soup, kimchi and rice and finishing the chores, San returned to his room. 

With a sigh, San slumped into his chair. He rubbed his hands across his eyes and then pulled his phone out of his pocket. Flicking through the notifications that he had not checked since the previous night, he skipped until he found Minhee’s name. 

The three weeks that he had spent with her seemed a world away, now. The fantasy of following ATEEZ around Seoul felt like a distant memory, or maybe just a vivid dream. He barely had time to follow their activities on twitter and relied on Minhee for updates. Her texts, and a yellow and blue album, sitting pride-of-place on the side of his desk, were the sole markers that it hadn’t just been a daydream. 

San scrolled through her texts quickly, fired off a response and pushed his phone away from himself so he could concentrate on researching his thesis. He had a research deadline coming up, and San was keen not to fall anywhere near behind schedule lest there were any more events that made him lose days. 

In the background, though, he put on a playlist of some of ATEEZ’s slower songs and ballads that they had covered. To the dulcet tones of Jongho’s melodies and Wooyoung’s harmony, he absorbed himself into the chemical structure of analgesics and their functional groups. Not the most interesting of topics, but an easy revision session to run through on a day that had already robbed him of the best of his fight.

For years, San had never understood people who insisted that their favourite celebrities helped them through the hard times. It seemed unrealistic. _How could someone who didn’t even know about his existence help him? What could they possibly contribute that would make his life even marginally better?_ Perhaps his scepticism had been fuelled by his general disinterest in the world of idols. 

Now, though, he was beginning to understand. He didn’t always have time to follow ATEEZ’s activities, or like their newest twitter posts–they were on a break, anyway, which Minhee was thrilled about after their eleven months of seemingly endless schedules, even if it meant their social media activity had sunk back to a minimum–but they made him smile anyway. 

Their music was a comfort blanket, familiar and easy to preoccupy himself with when everything else became too much. Their voices, crooning sweet words of reassurance and promises of happier times, gave him the motivation he needed in the morning. And _their smiles_. Their smiles and the bright ring of their laughter made the corners of his mouth twitch even on the lowest days. 

Wooyoung, in particular, held a special place in his heart. He found himself straying to his (secret) twitter account to track his tag and hovering on google image results in his short breaks more often than he wanted to admit.

Even Minhee had taken to spamming him with all the pictures she had collated of him over her time following the group. Their chat was filled to bursting with HD photos and short clips of Wooyoung’s face, and Minhee laughed each time she got the notification that San had saved another one to his photo library. 

San was not delusional. He knew that he didn’t stand a chance with Wooyoung. He was a celebrity of a group that was gaining more popularity every day, and San was just a regional barely-qualified-adult struggling to hold his own against the tide of life. Even so, it was Wooyoung who could make him smile to himself in the dead of night when he couldn’t sleep. And it was his distinctive voice and fluid dance lines that haunted him when he closed his eyes. 

The same playlist was still playing the next day when San found himself on the train, zooming towards Jinju. The train was quiet. Apparently, the 9:00 A.M. Tuesday train to Jinju wasn’t very popular. But, it was for the better. San pulled open his backpack and extracted his laptop from it and set it up on the fold-down table in front of him.

There were certain advantages to long train trips. _And this was one of them_. San rummaged through his download files and pulled out the set of videos he had saved to his hard drive the previous evening before he had gone to bed. There were a few cover dances, some fancams of their last event before their break, and a segmented version of the first three episodes of their newest reality show. 

Plugging in his headphones, San got started on watching through them all. The train journey would take an hour and a half; he might as well make use of it. And, at that moment, catching up with ATEEZ was as much of a priority as anything else. 

San had no intention of losing his life to following the group. But, everything else was fair game, and San had a vested interest in keeping up with ATEEZ. If only so he could fantasise in the middle of the night about his miracle story where he dated Wooyoung. It may not have been realistic, but he was more than content to play make-believe until he found a boy who he could date.

(It had been two years since he had last dated. The one-and-a-half-year relationship had been nice while it lasted, but had a rather ugly ending that San preferred not to dwell on). 

The train pulled up at Jinju station just before eleven, and San pushed his laptop back into his bag in a rush to get off and through the gates. The list his mother had given him was not extensive, but seeing as he was in Jinju, San wanted to reserve enough time to wander through some of the stores and window shop. _What else was the point of coming all the way to the big city?_

Thankfully, the stops were quick, albeit scattered all over the city in a completely illogical order, but there was nothing too drastic that he had work hard to find. Truth be told, he knew Jinju fairly well. It was the closest big city to Namhae, and consequently a place that he and his friends had often visited in the holidays. Just as it had been back then, Jinju was still a big city with the Nam River running right through the middle of it. 

Even his favourite coffee shop was still there, he discovered, as he meandered down one of the streets. With two shopping bags clutched in one hand, his phone in his other and ATEEZ still blasting through his headphones, he walked inside and settled himself at a small table by the window. 

In this café, the window spots were always the nicest. It overlooked the river, so he could see the boats bobbing on gentle ebbs and flows, and see little kids playing in the park by the water’s edge. San sipped at a large mug of tea and reclined in the over-stuffed seat as he watched the sky. 

In his pocket, his phone buzzed, and he pulled it out to scan the screen. There was a missed text from his mother asking him to pick up some groceries on the way home, and then a sudden bombardment of texts from Minhee. A small smile crept up his face as he scrolled through them. 

  

> >> **Minmin** ** ＼ ( ◎ o ◎ ) ／！**
> 
> sanie!!!!! 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Minmin** ** ＼ ( ◎ o ◎ ) ／！**
> 
> r u still in jinju ??? 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Minmin** ** ＼ ( ◎ o ◎ ) ／！**
> 
> u’d better be 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Minmin** ** ＼ ( ◎ o ◎ ) ／！**
> 
> ( ノ ಠ 益 ಠ ) ノ彡┻━┻
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Minmin** ** ＼ ( ◎ o ◎ ) ／！**
> 
> sanniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie
> 
>  
> 
> << **You**
> 
> ?? dude what? ?
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Minmin** ** ＼ ( ◎ o ◎ ) ／！**
> 
> !!!! San !!!! 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Minmin** ** ＼ ( ◎ o ◎ ) ／！**
> 
> Can you pick me up something ?! 
> 
>  
> 
> << **You**
> 
> ? literally what is there in jinju that there isn’t in seoul 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Minmin** ** ＼ ( ◎ o ◎ ) ／！**
> 
> there’s this shop that apparently sells like postcards and stuff and little mementoes of jinju 
> 
>  
> 
> << **You**
> 
> … and ? 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Minmin** ** ＼ ( ◎ o ◎ ) ／！**
> 
> Hwa is from jinju!! so i wanna give him like a card or something from his hometown next event ! 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Minmin** ** ＼ ( ◎ o ◎ ) ／！**
> 
> (*´ ▽｀ *)
> 
>  
> 
> << **You**
> 
> So ,, you’re gonna give him a card from his own town ..? 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Minmin** ** ＼ ( ◎ o ◎ ) ／！**
> 
> Ye!!! 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Minmin** ** ＼ ( ◎ o ◎ ) ／！**
> 
> So will you do it ? 
> 
>  
> 
> << **You**
> 
> sigh 
> 
>  
> 
> << **You**
> 
> is it like a specific shop i have to go to? 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Minmin** ** ＼ ( ◎ o ◎ ) ／！**
> 
> !!!!!! sanie i love you (*^3^)/~ ☆
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Minmin** ** ＼ ( ◎ o ◎ ) ／！**
> 
> Wait let me just send you the details of the place ! 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Minmin** ** ＼ ( ◎ o ◎ ) ／！**
> 
> You’ll probably have to go rlly soon bc i don’t think they’re open for much longer 

 

San set his mug on the saucer and waited for Minhee’s text to come through before he left the shop. He recognised the street as one from a more secluded area of the city–not one he knew particularly well, but nowhere that San could not reach within ten minutes. He shouldered his rucksack and picked up his bags of errands before leaving. 

His headphones back in and ATEEZ playing through them, San pushed the door open and battled his way to the edge of the street. The flow of foot traffic had increased significantly while he was having his tea, as the schools finished for the day and the en-masse movement towards hagwons and study halls began. 

Meanwhile, the weather had dulled while he was in the shop, and the sky was now a dull grey. San glanced up wearily but pressed on. The walk was short and, once he reached the street was covered by long eves on the roofs that, San supposed, would drip into the centre of the street if it rained. 

San pulled his phone out again and checked the address. A small frown impressed itself onto his face as he glanced between the buildings around him and the little number inked onto his screen. He turned on his heel a few times, circling around. 

The shops that surrounded him were small but unmarked. Mostly little trinket shops that San knew would probably have the same postcards and magnets that Minhee wanted. A part of him longed to walk into one of them and buy the things that Minhee wanted, but he could not bring himself to ignore her request for her specific shop. 

San glanced once more at his phone and around himself again. The street was quiet, though, and there was as little to help him now as there was ten minutes ago. Finally, San dropped his bags by his feet and used both hands to input the address into his maps app. 

The search came up blank, and he frowned again. 

A quiet voice made him jump. “D’you need some help?” The rough traces of Gyeongsang dialect hung in the voice. “You look lost…” In the back of his mind, the voice seemed familiar, but San knew any number of people with Gyeongsang dialect and did not spare a thought for it. 

San did not look up, as he pulled up the address that Minhee had sent him. “Do you know where…” He trailed as he raised his head and was met with a painstaking familiar face. 

_Seonghwa_. 

The words froze in his mouth when Seonghwa gave him a small smile. “What’re you looking for?”

San’s hands trembled and he scrambled to pull his headphones out. His stomach went through the floor as he struggled to reach for the words. “I, uh,” he said dumbly. _God, what was it with him and losing the ability to talk when ATEEZ were involved?_

Another voice suddenly spoke, and San could have sworn he turned physically green. “Hwa’s from Jinju! He can give you directions if you need them!” Ever outgoing and friendly, and with a bright grin that San could have sworn lit up the entire street, Wooyoung appeared from behind Seonghwa. 

It was almost comical, San thought in retrospect. There was a beat of silence where none of them spoke, and then Seonghwa and Wooyoung’s eyes bloomed with recognition at the exact same moment.

“San!” Wooyoung chirped. His beam widened and his arms extended for a second as though he was going to offer a hug and then thought better of it. “Wait, you are San, right?” 

The words took a second to process and San forced himself to take a deep, steadying breath before he nodded. 

“It’s nice to see you again,” Seonghwa offered. He looked a little awkward as if he wasn’t entirely sure of what to say. And, San was suddenly reminded that in the range of personalities that ATEEZ held, Seonghwa was one of the more reserved members. 

Wooyoung nodded eagerly. “Yeah, we missed you at the fansigns!” A sudden frown crossed his face. “We, uh, heard about…” His voice died in his throat as he seemed to think better of whatever he was about to see. 

San did not have to think too hard about what he was going to say. Minhee had picked up from where San left off, and maybe his reasons for leaving had come up in a thirty-second conversation at some point. He tried not to think about it too hard. 

Thinking about Minhee made his stomach suddenly wrench, and he rushed to turn his phone back on. The screen flashed on with an ATEEZ album clearly playing on the screen, and San turned bright red. He heard Wooyoung let out a breathy laugh next to him that made the situation even worse. 

“Do you, uh, know where this place is?” he asked hurriedly, showing Seonghwa the address. His brain was short-circuiting too badly to realise that he was wasting what would probably be the only chance he would ever have to spend time with ATEEZ. 

Seonghwa glanced at the screen and frowned. “It’s been renamed, I think, but yeah.” He squinted and then nodded. “We can walk you there if you want…” 

San’s eyes went round. His heart was beating through his ribs and threatening to burst through his skin. “You could?” 

Wooyoung laughed. “Yeah! Totally! Hwa, lead the way!” _How the hell did he have the ability to act so cooly around everyone he met?_

Seonghwa nodded and pointed in the opposite direction to where San was facing. “That way. Probably about five-hundred metres? Maybe?” He laughed quietly and shoved his hands into his pockets. 

San took a step to follow him but suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned, feeling like a fire had been lit inside him, and found himself facing Wooyoung. “Don’t forget your things,” Wooyoung said, stooping down to pick up the two bags that San had completely forgotten about. He passed them to San and, for a second, their fingers brushed past each other. 

San wondered if he felt the same lightning bolts ricocheting through him. _Probably not_. His hands shook as he clutched the handles of the bag and did his best to send a quick text to Minhee. Wooyoung grinned at him and waited for him to fall into step with him and Seonghwa before they continued up the road. 

 

> << **You**
> 
> MINHEE WHAT THE FUCK 


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cool, so, I know it's been six months. But, hear me out: life has been a little bit shitty and very very crazy. Either way, I'm back and hopefully for good.

The five-hundred-metre walk was possibly the worst that San had ever undertaken in his life. His stomach rolled and his hands trembled so badly that it was frankly humiliating. Meanwhile, Wooyoung seemed perfectly happy to chatter and San did his best to pay attention to his words. 

It was more difficult than it should have been. He felt like he was floating in a dream, meandering through without any sense of control of reality. But, it couldn’t have been a dream, because he could never have imagined Seonghwa and Wooyoung being like this. 

On a realistic level, he knew that the personas idols had onstage were often different to their real personalities. To some degree, that came through in fan signs and moments of spontaneity that were caught on tape. Nonetheless, it was bizarre to see them both of makeup, costumes and with a looseness in their shoulders that San could not recall seeing before. It was almost like he was intruding on something private. 

“So, what’re you doing in Jinju?” Wooyoung asked as the followed Seonghwa. He had his hands in his pockets, but his elbows swung in time with his steps. 

San shifted his hands, weighed down by the shopping bags. “Running errands for my mum.” He glanced in Wooyoung’s direction and shied away again as soon as he met his eyes. Unlike at the fan signs, though, San had lost the filter to his mouth and blurted out sentences to elaborate. “There aren’t any big shopping centres in Namhae, so we have to come to the city to get some stuff. Besides, Jinju has better libraries than Sacheon, so I prefer to come here so I can research, too.” 

The last bit was not entirely a lie. The Gyeongsang National University library, located in Jinju, _was_ better than its closest alternatives, but San had not gone there today. Between the tasks he had been completing for his mother and the bags he had racked up doing so, he had decided that it wasn’t worth going into the library. 

Wooyoung opened his mouth as if he was about to respond, but Seonghwa cut over him. 

“This is it,” Seonghwa said as he paused outside a shop, and San jolted to a halt so he didn’t run into him. “Kinda a cute place.” His words were still rounded with satoori that San rarely heard in ATEEZ’s interviews or vlives. San never quite realised how much he liked hearing it; the familiarity was like a token of camaraderie from a stranger. 

Hurrying to offer a bow to him, San could not bring himself to look up again. Everything was catching up to him. _He was talking to Wooyoung and Seonghwa. How was he meant to deal with that?_ He stumbled over his words as he started speaking, “Thank you for your help today.” 

A bite of laughter stained Seonghwa’s voice. “No problem. It was nice to see you again.” 

Slowly, San straightened up again, resisting the urge to squirm. The store, every bit as trinket-filled as Minhee had promised, was lit up by warm, yellow lights. The soft colour spilt out of the windows and fell onto the darkening pavement before it. 

Wooyoung gazed at it, too, and then turned to Seonghwa with a grin on his face. “Wait, I want to look, too!” His eyes flickered in glee. “I’ve never been to Jinju before. You have to show me a souvenir shop at least once.” 

San watched them awkwardly, not quite knowing whether he was overstaying his welcome. Was this where he was meant to say a last thank you, walk into the stop and try to process what had just happened? Or, did he wait for a moment longer and see how this conversation ended? 

His question was answered for him when Seonghwa rolled his eyes and let Wooyoung steer him and San into the shop. 

For a moment, San did not know what to do. His stomach turned as he looked around the small shop. _Did he follow them? Or was that weird?_ Wooyoung walked down an aisle, and Seonghwa followed him. Awkwardly frozen by the doorway, San did not join them. 

Instead, he went down another line and began to choose postcards out of a display. He had no idea what Minhee wanted in particular, but his mind was too far away to care. His stomach contracted as he struggled to process what had just happened. 

_He had met Seonghwa and Wooyoung_. That in itself was, technically, not new. He had talked to them, even held their hand, before, but there was something different about seeing them away from their stage duties. A part of San squirmed at that thought: _was he intruding? Everyone needed time where they could properly get away from their jobs and the duties that bought with it_. 

As he looked down, San found a collection of trinkets in his hand that he did not realise he had picked up. He took the last few steps to the counter and paid for them, his mind absent. Perhaps he could visit Seoul for a weekend and deliver them to Minhee in person… Or, would he have to just send them? 

A familiar presence appeared behind him, and San swallowed involuntarily. 

“You’re going?” Wooyoung asked. San prayed that he wasn’t imagining the tone of sadness in his voice. 

San thanked the shopowner and pushed the small bag she had given him into one of the larger ones he already had. Then, he turned to face Wooyoung and gave him a timid shrug. “I, uh, got what I need to, I guess…” 

And, that was a strange thought: Seonghwa in the store at the exact time that San had bought the gifts that Minhee would give to him. San blinked and bought himself back to staring at Wooyoung. He was somehow so much more handsome than San had ever noticed before, all fluffy hair and bright eyes. 

Wooyoung chewed on his lip for a second, something conflicted lurking in his expression. He glanced behind him, and suddenly noticed that Seonghwa had reappeared. “When’s your train?” he asked slowly. 

“Whenever I go back to the station, I guess…” San replied, leading their small trio out of the shop. It was still light outside, but San could see the sun getting lower. He imagined it would be gone within two hours, by which time he should definitely be on the train. 

“Do you…” San raised a hand to run through his hair, lifting a bag with the motion. Wooyoung stared at him, his expression as open and welcoming as ever. The words were not registering as he spoke, as if his subconscious had taken over and stopped his common sense from working. “Maybe, did you want to get coffee?” 

As soon as the words were out, San realised what he had said and he froze. _Oh, God._ His eyes widened and his hand drifted to rub at his ear as he gave an awkward laugh. “Or, not, I mean, obviously you don’t have to, and it’s not like you’d want to anyway, and, _shit,_ I’m sorry, that came out of nowhere.” He took a shuddering breath in and opened his mouth again to continue, but Wooyoung cut him off. 

“No, no, that’d be really nice!” Wooyoung chirped, clasping his hands in front of himself as his face lit up like a bonfire. “I mean, I’d be down to, but,” he glanced at Seonghwa, “Hyung…?” 

Seonghwa’s lips tightened and he and Wooyoung seemed to have a wordless conversation through their glances. “That’d be fine,” he said after a long pause. 

Fireworks exploded inside of San’s chest. _Was he dreaming?_ “Really? I mean, you’re probably here on a break, and I totally get if you just don’t want to hang out with someone like me…” He trailed off and glanced between the two of them before continuing in a smaller voice. “You know, like a fan.” 

There was a silence and then Seonghwa gave him what looked like a painful smile. “I know a quiet café down a block that does really good coffee.” 

Wooyoung nodded and waited for San to do so as well before they started walking. The air between them was thick and completely soundless, and San chewed on the inside of his cheek. For as long as he could remember, when he was nervous, he had either defaulted to compulsiveness or withdrawing completely. There was no in-between. 

And somehow, that brashness had landed him a coffee-date with two of hid idols. _Had he made a mistake?_ It felt like it: even as they ordered and sat down in the corner of the shop, the tension hung thick enough to cut. 

San tapped his finger on the rim of his cup. It had been less than an hour since his last one, not that he was about to say that out loud. He glanced at the other two, wracking his brain for something to say before they suffocated in the silence. 

“Why did you agree?” he asked, gaze flickering to Wooyoung. “You really didn’t have to, particularly if it was out of pity…” He sipped his coffee and avoided making eye contact with either of them. 

“It wasn’t pity,” Seonghwa said, voice careful. San could tell he was measuring his words. Despite them, it was difficult for San to see it as something else. Seonghwa and Wooyoung knew him as a fan, not a friend, and idols didn’t _just_ go out for coffee with their fans for no good reason. 

Wooyoung nodded. “We’re idols, right? And we’ve been doing this for a while.” With a small smile, he traced patterns onto the porcelain of his mug. “You kinda get a vibe of who you can and can’t trust after a while. You were always so nice at the fan signs; I don’t think you’re about to sell us out for money, I guess, and it’s nice to talk to people outside of work.” 

San blinked at him and bobbed his head, his cheeks flushing. He stared into the dark coffee. The patterned foam had mostly evaporated and only the dark liquid was left behind. 

“How come you’re here?” San asked after a few minutes of silence. 

Seonghwa raised an eyebrow. “I live here.”

“Hyung, he definitely already knows that” Wooyoung moaned, rolling his eyes in San’s direction. “But, you mean you haven’t been following us?” A cheeky smirk, one that San knew so well from variety shows, appeared. 

San could only grimace in return. “I’ve been busy,” he said, voice wry and overly aware of the snakes writhing in his belly. He was still struggling to process that he was sitting across from Seonghwa and Wooyoung drinking coffee. Responding to their questions with anything other than the blatantly obvious was like being asked to swim to China: impossible in his current state. 

Wooyoung’s eyes shuttered and San’s stomach sunk through the floor. With his grip on the mug turning his knuckles white, he hurried to correct himself. “I mean, I’ve still been watching stuff and checking your twitter. It’s just that stuff at home got kind of crazy and I don’t have a lot of free time.” If his words didn’t do it, San hoped his desperate expression might be enough to stop Wooyoung from looking like a kicked puppy. 

Seonghwa coughed and covered his mouth with his long fingers. “We were given a few weeks to go home before we start to prepare for our next comeback.” 

“My parents are away with my sister at the moment,” Wooyoung added, bouncing back to life. “So, hyung asked if I wanted to come with him so that I didn’t have to stay at the dorms by myself. Actually, Yeosang asked, too, but I’ve never been to Jinju before!” 

“It’s nice here.” San turned the cup in his hands. 

Wooyoung took a sip of his heavily sugared hot chocolate and nodded. “It is. I can’t wait to come back on tour,” he said with a sigh. 

“Tour?” San blinked. 

Eyes wide, Wooyoung turned to Seonghwa with a look of dread on his face. San held back a grin. _That was obviously meant to be a secret_. 

Seonghwa narrowed his eyes at Wooyoung and then fixed San with a cold look. It was not angry as much as hesitant and warning. “You know you can’t talk about this to anyone, right? It’s not a threat or anything, but we do have a legal team and non-disclosure agreements.” 

“Oh, my God, no,” San said, “I swear I won’t tell anyone. I don’t even have anyone to say something to. Except for Minhee, maybe, but I wouldn’t.” 

That forced a dry smile from Seonghwa and Wooyoung let out a visible breath. The tension in their shoulders seemed to fall away as they both relaxed back into their cushioned seats. A series of eyebrow raises and mouth twitches passed between them in the space of a few seconds, and then Wooyoung spoke again. 

“You really can’t say anything.” Wooyoung met his eyes and San’s neck heated up like he had wrapped a wheat bag around it. 

San nodded, earnest. “Trust me, I really can’t afford the legal bills that I’m sure I’d be hit with if I did.” 

A snort from Wooyoung told San his statute to silence had been accepted. “We’re going on tour for our next album. Just around Korea, but, yeah. We’ll be coming down to places like Jinju and Gwangju.” 

“Wonju, Cheongju, Ansan, Gwangyang, some others, too,” Seonghwa contributed, stirring his iced tea with a long straw. “Places we don’t usually visit, you know? Full album and now that we’re fairly established in Korea, we may as well take the chance.”

San hummed his agreement, at a loss for words. _They were coming here?_ Maybe he would get the chance to go to their concert. If he had enough notice, San was sure he’d be able to wrangle a day off between his study, work and duties at home… 

“We start recording for it next week when we go back to Seoul.” Wooyoung set his half-empty cup on the table between them and crossed his legs. “It’ll be good, though! We all got to try writing lyrics this time, which means we can actually be put in the album credits.” 

Seonghwa poked him in the shoulder. “Yah, don’t give away too much. You shouldn’t have even said we’re thinking about a comeback yet.” 

Shrugging, Wooyoung elbowed Seonghwa in return. “It’s not like people don’t already know it. If the last round of promotions went well, everyone knows that it’s only a matter of time before it starts again. Right?” He turned to San for support. 

“I guess,” San said slowly. He finished the last of his coffee but continued to hold the mug in his hands. If he didn’t, he was sure he would fidget until he ended up shredding the skin around his nails or something of the like. His chest felt like it was vibrating with how hard he was trying to maintain a casual façade. “I’ve never really followed kpop much…” 

“Oh?” Seonghwa said, mild interest spiking his voice. 

San nodded. “I mean, I only found ATEEZ because Minhee had to go to an exam and I went to the fan sign for her. I probably wouldn’t have ever listened to your music if it wasn’t for that.” 

Those words made his body go cold; it had only been a few months, but already it felt strange to imagine not knowing their music. It wasn’t a lifeline, nor something that he could not live without. But, it was something familiar and comforting: normality when everything else in his life seemed to be going in twelve different directions of crazy with a healthy dressing of general shittiness. It was strange how something could grow in importance over such a short space of time, but it made everything about this coffee shop date feel all the more surreal. 

Two pairs of round eyes stared back at him and San shook himself out of his trance before elaborating. “I don’t dislike kpop, I just never really got into it. But, I saw you at the fan sign and I really liked your music, so, yeah.” He trailed off, refusing steadfast to let his gaze stray to Wooyoung. He wasn’t about to betray his stupid fantasies. San knew how to keep his make-believe worlds and reality apart from each other. 

“We just caught your attention, huh?” Wooyoung said. His voice was a little higher than usual, but San carefully made sure not to look in his direction as he gave a small nod of agreement. 

Seonghwa, however, did manage to catch his eye and smirked. 

San prayed that his cheeks were not noticeably red. 

“But, anyway,” Seonghwa started again and turned the topic around. He crossed a leg over the other as he continued talking. His entire posture was obviously more relaxed and San allowed himself to sit back, too. If he kept up his hypervigilance for much longer, he was sure he would implode from the pressure of it. 

Their conversation drifted to San’s research and then back to what Seonghwa and Wooyoung had planned for their remaining days in Jinju. Time passed so quickly that San did not notice the dull sunset fade into an equally uninspiring night skyline, or the dwindling number of people in the coffee shop. Not until his phone rang, anyway. 

San glanced at the screen and blanched at the sight of his mother’s name. As much as he loved talking to his mum, he had become so used to associating the calls with news from the hospital that he always felt his stomach turn inside out when he saw the ID. 

“I have to take this,” he said quickly and did his best to turn his back to give himself some privacy. Wooyoung and Seonghwa respectfully began a conversation in low tones with each other and did not watch San as he spoke with his mother. 

San spoke before his mother had the chance to. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything is fine,” his mother assured him. Her voice was as gentle as ever and it soothed San like a salve on a cut. “Are you enjoying yourself?” 

San took a second to respond. There had to be more to this phonecall than a simple check-up. “Yeah…” he said, dragging the word out in uncertainty. 

His mother made a noise of approval. “Good. I just wanted to let you know that I have to pick up some extra shifts tonight. Can you be home in time to make sure your father takes his medicine?” _So that was the reason…_ “He needs to have his tablets at nine, but…” The unspoken words were there: he would not remember by himself. Dementia was a torturous disease to watch someone decline with. 

“I can do that, mum,” San said. “I’ll get home as soon as possible.” 

“You’re a good boy, Sannie.” The words were soft, delicate as if a strong push would make them shatter, but San tried to push that thought aside. He knew how much stress his mother was under, between balancing a job to be able to pay the household expenses and hospital fees while still taking care of her husband on top of that. “I’ll be home late, so don’t wait up for me when you get home, okay?” 

“Okay.” 

“Alright, then. I’ll see you in the morning then, yes?” 

She waited for a response and then hung up. San looked at the screen of his phone for a second and sighed. It was already nearing seven in the evening. He would have to rush in order to make sure he was home in time. 

“Is everything alright?” Wooyoung asked. He sounded genuinely concerned, but it flew past San as he rushed to check that he had the right number of bags. 

San shoved his hand into his pocket and fumbled around for any spare change. He withdrew a crumpled ten-thousand won note and held it out to Wooyoung and Seonghwa. “I’m really sorry, I have to go right now, my dad…” He paused and watched a hint of pity form in Wooyoung’s expression. “This’ll pay for my drink, and again, I’m really sorry, but I need to catch the next train, and-.” He cut himself off for the second time in an attempt to stop his rambling. 

“I’ll cover the bill,” Wooyoung said in a hurry. Seonghwa did not bother to hide a look of mild surprise. “We understand, it’s okay. I hope your dad’ll be alright.” 

San brandished the note again. “No, really, I insist. I’ve bothered you all afternoon, please just take it.” He could hear the desperation and held back a wince. He was completely destroying his own image in front of his celebrity crush who he had just had coffee with. _What a sad concept_. 

Wooyoung’s fingers brushed against San’s hand as he pushed it back. “It’s fine, seriously,” he said with a smile that was bordering on forced, “You definitely weren’t bothering us, right, hyung?” He turned to Seonghwa expectantly. 

“Wooyoung’s right. Don’t worry about it. It was nice talking with you,” Seonghwa said and his words were so genuine that San might have sat down and cried if the situation had been different. 

Nodding, Wooyoung’s eyes met San’s. “Can you maybe put it towards coming to one of our concerts instead? Or even a fan sign? I missed seeing your face at the ones in Seoul.” It sounded nothing like the usual fan service used to appeal to the masses that San saw in televisions and at the Seoul events, but San would process that later. 

For now, all he could do was nod with a dumbstruck expression and let the skin that Wooyoung had skimmed across burn like he had been touched with an iron. “I’ll, uh, yes,” San mumbled. He fumbled the money back into his pocket and performed an awkward action somewhere between a bow and nod. 

“You don’t need to wait around, we’ll manage the bill so you can get home,” Seonghwa said. It was not a dismissal although his words were frank. “I hope your father’s alright, though.” 

Wooyoung flickered between looking at Seonghwa and San. “It was really nice to spend time with you today,” he said and then the grin that made San’s heart skip a beat every time he saw it appeared, “and I really hope I’ll see you on the tour.” 

San’s brain seemed to short out as he processed Wooyoung’s words. He could not quite remember what he said or did as he made his way out of the café. Only the pounding of his heart in his ears was discernible as the full weight of the last few hours began to fall on top of him like a pile of bricks. 

_He had spent almost half a day with Wooyoung and Seonghwa. And, God, what a fool he had made himself look in front of them._

By the time he made it to the train, San was still not quite sure what had happened. It seemed like a fever dream, even though he knew it could not have been because he could still taste the bitterness of the coffee and feel heat radiating from where Wooyoung had touched him. He leant his head back on the seat and let out a slow breath. 

He would have to start saving for the tour. Ten-thousand won down, ninety-thousand to go. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, as always! Links to my twitter and tumblr are below. Please hit me up: I'm multifandom af so just hit me with whatever and I'll go with it. 
> 
> Hope you enjoyed the chapter! Let me know if you have any thoughts--again, comments are always so motivating to receive, so I'd love to hear from you!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why did it take me four months to write 4k words? I don't know either. What I do know is that once I actually sat down I ended up writing the next few chapters as well, so ,, uh ,, let's hope this won't happen again? But then again, I said that last chapter, too :\
> 
> Warnings are at the end of the chapter! Please check that out if you want more information.

On the train home, San’s mind buzzed from the few hours beforehand. Even in his head, it sounded fake. The small, paper bag of souvenirs and lingering bitterness of coffee were proof enough that it wasn’t, but he could not bring himself to answer the unanswered texts from Minhee with the truth. 

So, he sat there and replayed the afternoon in his head, trying to wrap his mind around it. Wooyoung and Seonghwa’s faces floated in front of his eyes in HD, complete with all the imperfections that were never seen through photoshop and layers of stage makeup. Their casual, dressed-down attire swum in his memory and their voices rang in his ears. 

Wooyoung’s grin and laughter were intangible presences. Butterflies rose in his stomach even thinking about all the times their hands had brushed and those moments of eye contact. Before, he had allowed himself to indulge in the fantasy of Wooyoung because there was a clear separation between what was realistic and his imagination. 

Now that they had met in person, away from the confines of an idol’s job, it was so much more difficult. The line had blurred between an infatuation with an idol persona and a crush on the real person. San was not about to vouch that the Wooyoung and Seonghwa he had met today were completely detached from their stage-selves—they were ultimately still with him, a fan, after all—but he felt as if it could have been close to it. 

The thought of Wooyoung made his stomach tie itself into knots like it had in university when he sat next to the boy who later became his boyfriend in their Introductory Medicinal Chemistry unit. It was a scary thought; since university, he had been so busy that he had barely allowed himself to think about relationships. And, here he was, having fallen the rest of the way down the rabbit hole in the space of a single afternoon. 

Perhaps it was a good thing he had decided not to tell Minhee about meeting Wooyoung and Seonghwa. She would have teased him for as long as she lived to tell the story. 

As the train rolled into the countryside, San allowed himself to replay his conversations with Wooyoung like a tape and dredge up the older interactions from those fansigns, too. ATEEZ’s music played through his earphones as he relaxed into the chair and stared out the window into the inky night. 

In retrospect, it was the calm before the storm. 

Life went on in Namhae when he got back that night. He studied as much as he could while supporting both his parents at home and managing work. He saw his friends who had not already left the island when he could and occasionally called if he could not. 

The ten-thousand won note sat at the bottom of his bag all but forgotten. If the grind of daily life was not enough to wipe it from his memory, then his father’s recommittal to the hospital a little under a month later was. 

San devoted himself to pacing that hospital corridor in-between bedside vigils and his other sorely neglected obligations. This time, they know his father would not be leaving. It had been a countdown for years and for that brief month he had returned home, San had seen just how frail he had become. 

In some ways, that made his acceptance of the situation easier than his sister’s, who had not seen the last, painful month. In other ways, it made his emotional investment in the situation so much harder that he struggled to drag himself home each night when his mother gently told him that someone needed to close the curtains and she had a duty to be by her husband’s side. 

It took several long, hard weeks to come to a point of acceptance. It didn’t make the situation any easier, but it did bring resignation for when only a few days later, the time was called. 

There was no denying it had been a long time coming. Even so, San’s appetite dropped to nothing and the persistent drizzle reflected the emptiness in his chest. He pulled himself through days, passive and without motivation. He could not take a moment to fully stop, but it was impossible to pretend that nothing had changed. 

San’s sister came and left Namhae with her family in trail. Her eyes were equally red, but unlike San, she had obligations in other places and could not stay forever. So, once again, it was just San and his mother alone in a house that felt much too big for two people.

His mother floated around the house, a whisper of herself. She and San’s father had been married since they were twenty and they had barely been apart for more than a day since then. Even for all those long hospital stays, San’s mother had diligently visited every day with a soft kiss and a new story to tell. 

It was difficult. Moments dragged while days flew past in a haze of grey emotions and half-heartedly completed chores. 

Just as with all parts of life, though, time did not stop and slowly, a new normal started to form. The fog lifted little bit by little bit and San entrenched himself in work. When he was busy, there was no time for him to dwell on the few months that had preceded what he was doing. 

Work, study, home, sleep. Work, study, home, sleep. Everything else drifted from his mind. It was an easy schedule to work and ingrain until it became muscle memory. San could go about his day with barely a thought in his head and move through each task in a methodical, robotic way. 

It went on for weeks. Rinse and repeat. Until his mother asked him to go to the bus terminal. 

“Why?” San asked, over his bowl of malgeungguk, warmed up again from two days ago. 

His mother swallowed her mouthful. “Minhee is coming down for two weeks.” 

“Minhee?” San repeated. “I thought she was busy with university…” Honestly, he had not heard from her in weeks. Although it had not been usual for San to take a day or two to reply to messages for the past few months, he could not remember receiving many messages from Minhee at all. Certainly not in the way that they used to text. She had been busy and San had been preoccupied. 

Standing up to take her bowl to the sink, his mother avoided looking at him as she spoke. “She wasn’t able to come to the funeral, so she’s coming now instead to… to pay her respects.” The tightness in her voice was familiar; it happened every time she spoke of her late husband. By now, San had learnt that it was better to let her deal with it than to offer words of comfort. 

A second passed in silence and San bit his lip. “When’s she coming?” 

“The last bus tonight. So, make sure you’re there so she doesn’t have to walk to our house alone.” 

San nodded. “Okay.” He walked his own bowl over and took the sponge from his mother. “I’ll do the dishes. You should go to bed. The last bus always gets in really late.” 

His mother did not protest as she shuffled out of the room, silent. 

San watched her go and then turned back to the sink. He swilled water across the plates and cutlery before starting on the plastic pot that the leftover soup had been stored in. 

As he stood there, he tried to recall the last time he had really spoken to Minhee. There had been sporadic messages;  _ I’ve got another test next week, I’m sorry about your father, What’re you doing on the weekend? _ But, it had been superficial at best. Something to tide them over until something happened that they could call a return to the old normal. 

Really, though, he thought the last time they had a conversation (albeit by text) was on that day in Jinju all those months ago. The day he had collected those little trinkets. The day he had met Wooyoung and Seonghwa. His stomach went cold. 

It wasn’t that he hadn’t thought about ATEEZ in the past few months; he had. But, he had never devoted much time to it. There were other priorities that were far more pressing than that, so like so many other things, it had become background noise. 

He had no idea what they were doing or what they had been doing recently. Minhee, who usually kept him updated, had been busy and San hadn’t looked it up, either. 

He felt so far removed from that day in Jinju that it was hard to believe he had really sat down and had coffee with Wooyoung and Seonghwa. The idea was simply too strange when he thought about it. It sounded like the type of thing he would read about on websites dedicated to fictionalising experiences fans would never have in real life. 

As he set the pot on the drying rack, San shook his head and cast it out of his mind. He  _ was _ still busy. He filled every minute of his day with things to distract himself and there was no time in there to dedicate to agonising over memories or watching endless hours of videos. 

San walked back to the table and lugged a few reference books from an unused chair in front of himself. He had an hour or so before he had to walk down to the terminal, and more study for his dissertation than he knew what to do with.  _ SUBJECT _ really could be a nightmare, sometimes. 

Before he knew it, he was locking the door behind him and shrugging on a thick coat as he walked down to the terminal. Winter was beginning to set in and the night had a vicious bite when he didn’t wear warm enough clothes. 

It was dark with only old, blinking lamps to light the way. The roads were silent, too, almost completely deserted of cars. By the time he reached the terminal, the streetlights were more functional and his fingers and tip of his nose were tingling from the chill. 

San leant against a pole, opposite the exit, as he waited for Minhee. It didn’t take long for a short bundle of woolly beanie and cardigan to throw itself into San’s arms. 

“San, it’s been too long!” Minhee cooed as she hugged him as tightly as possible. Her bag had been dropped carelessly on the ground behind her and cast a long shadow in three different directions thanks to the lights. “I’ve missed you so much!” 

A grin grew on San’s face as he hugged her in return. He had forgotten how nice it was to be around her. “I’ve missed you, too,” he said, before pulling away. “Did you bring a coat?” 

Minhee picked up her bag and pulled a face. “It’s under all my stuff. So, we’re just going to walk as quickly as possible so I don’t freeze.” 

“It’s all uphill from here, anyway,” San said with a smile. He stuffed his hands back into his pockets and carried on up the hill. “You’ll be fine.” 

Minhee poked her tongue out at him. “Sure, sure.” 

Humming in agreement, San turned a corner. “How have you managed two weeks off uni? I thought you said you were really busy.” 

For a moment, Minhee paused in the middle of the road and stared at him. “No, you don’t even understand, it’s literally a nightmare,” she whined as she began walking again, “Okay, let’s start with my professor for my stochastic analysis class.” She sighed loudly and then launched into a tirade. 

San listened to her patiently, interjecting where he could, as they made their way up the hill. It was not a short walk back to his house, particularly not considering it was all uphill and Minhee was still carrying her bag, but she managed to fill the entire journey with chatter about her university dramas. 

As San opened the front door, he gently cut her off. “Mum’s probably in bed,” he said, kicking his shoes off before he stepped inside. “So, you need to be quiet until we get to your room.” 

Minhee made a motion of zipping her lips and untied her own shoes. 

San took her to the stare bedroom, which had formerly been his sister’s, and sat down on the bed with a groan. 

Dropping her bag at the foot of the bed, Minhee’s eyes sparkled. “Isn’t that supposed to be my bed?” she asked, dropping down onto it next to him. “I’ll make a complaint if you make them all messy.” 

“Who to?” San said, rolling his eyes, “I’m in charge of dealing with complaints around here.” 

Minhee pulled a face. “Whatever, then.” She pulled her legs up and crossed them tightly in front of herself. There was a moment of silence before she began talking again. “Okay, so, like I was saying. My group-mate in my Topology class...” 

San tried not to roll his eyes too obviously as he curled up on his side and settled in to listen. 

It was the early hours of the morning by the time they fell asleep. He was curled up on the bottom of Minhee’s bed like a cat with Minhee slumped ungracefully next to him when their mother found them in the morning and promptly scolded him for disturbing Minhee’s sleep. 

As it was the weekend, San did not have to go to work. Usually, he would have filled his day with running errands and doing all the chores around the house that he didn’t have time to do in the week. With Minhee here, they pulled warm jumpers on before leaving the house to walk around the local area. 

Namhae was not a  _ small _ place by any means; the main island was fairly large and would take days to walk around entirely. But, it was quiet and rural enough that within ten minutes of San’s home, there were quiet tracks and lanes where cars seldom went. A little further again, and they could make it right into deserted forests with no one to disturb them at all. 

As they walked, San talked. Months of bottling things up with no one to really offload it to, and when he finally opened his mouth, it felt so good. Minhee was nothing if not a good listener, and one of the few people to San felt comfortable telling everything to. 

Before Minhee and her family had moved to Seoul when she was fourteen, they had practically grown up as siblings. It was a relationship made easy by the fact that they lived five minutes from each other and both of them had much older siblings who often weren’t available to play with them. 

Years on, despite the hundreds of kilometres that usually separated them, that had lived on. She was the first person that San had come out to, and he trusted her to the moon and back with secrets and stories he had. It was easy to talk to her because as much as she loved to talk, too, she also knew when he just needed a person to listen without judgement or comment. 

He had not realised how weighted down he had been with everything. The further he walked, the more he felt that crushing sensation lift from his chest. 

They turned a sharp corner onto a tiny, scruffy path that they had discovered when they were still kids and began to climb the embankment. At the top, there was a small plateau with a perfect view of the town and down across the bay. It was a calm, grey day and the horizon blended into the bay as they stared across it in silence. 

For a long time, it was all they needed. The comfort of another person next to him was enough for San as he curled his arms around his legs and rested his chin on his knees. 

“I’m sorry I couldn’t get down here earlier,” she said softly. “I wanted to come with my parents, but I couldn’t leave because I was about to start exams.” 

San shrugged. “It’s fine. I’m glad you’re here now, instead.” 

Minhee hummed. “Your sister was worried about you.” 

“Rin?” 

“Yeah. She was worried you and your mum would go crazy down here by yourselves. I mean, nearly everyone else has moved away or, you know,  _ died _ .” She mumbled the words as if she wasn’t confident in what she was saying. 

San rolled his eyes and snorted. “I love Rin, but she’s a chronic worrier. I mean, sure, Mum’s side of the family mostly moved away-” he gave her a playful jab in the ribs “-but Dad’s is all still down here. Besides, we’ve all got some friends who haven’t left…” He trailed off, not quite sure of where to go. 

“Yeah, I know,” Minhee said. “But, still, lots of  _ your _ friends have moved to the cities, haven’t they? Hell, most people our age are moving away.” 

San sighed and propped his arms behind him to lean on. Tangling his fingers into the dry grass, he stared ahead so he didn’t have to meet Minhee’s eyes. “I like it here.” And, it wasn’t a lie exactly. He did love Namhae. It was his hometown. He loved the people and the scenery around it. But, he missed Seoul as well. 

When he had lived there through university, he had longed for the hills and fields of Namhae. Now he was back again, he missed being close to things. There was an endless selection of shops, cafes and restaurants. Specialist shops, if he needed them, weren’t hard to find. Most of his friends were there. 

More often than not, it seemed like there was no easy middle-ground. 

Minhee sighed. “Okay, so I wasn’t going to mention this now, but…” She paused for a moment before lying back on the grass. “I’m planning on moving out of my parent’s house in a few months.”

San whipped around to face her, his stomach doing a funny jump. “Seriously? That’s awesome? Where are you planning on moving?” 

“I’ve still got to find a place,” Minhee said slowly, “But it’ll be some cheap-ish place in Seoul. I want to be closer to university and my job.” 

San blinked at her. “Your job?” 

“I got an internship at a company,” she said, bashful. “It’s not paid very well, but if I do a good job then it’ll be a direct route in so I can get a good job once I’ve officially graduated.” 

Slumping back next to her, San exhaled. “Oh, my God. I feel like I’ve missed so much. What else haven’t I been told?” 

Minhee rolled her eyes and threw an arm out across his stomach to pinch him. “Shut up. Anyway,” she cleared her throat, “In order to move out, I need a roommate.” 

“A roommate…” San repeated after a moment. Slowly, he was beginning to see where this was going. “And you want…” 

“I want you to be my roommate.” Minhee finished the sentence for him. Before San could process the words, she was speaking again. “I mean, think about it, it’d be great. We know that we can live together well, so we’d be fine on that front. Plus, you could move up to Seoul again. Most of your friends are there, you wouldn’t have to do distance education anymore, you’d find a job easily because you’ve already graduated  _ and _ you’ve got work experience from the lab you’re working at now… It’d be a really good opportunity.” 

San opened his mouth, closed it and then opened it again. “I- My mum. I…” he struggled to construct a sentence as he stared into the cloudy sky. It was one of the few times he’d been truly lost for words. 

“You don’t have to decide now,” Minhee said, her voice suddenly shy again. “It was just an idea. But, I really do think it’d do you good to get out of Namhae. You said it yourself this morning, you’re living like a robot right now and practically stewing in your own misery. Maybe getting away for a bit is what you need.” 

San swallowed. He knew exactly what she was talking about. A part of him longed to jump on the chance there and then, but he couldn’t. He had a life here in Namhae and his mother who would be left all alone if he moved. It wasn’t as simple as Minhee made it sound, no matter how much his stomach gnawed on itself at the idea. 

“I’ll think about it,” San eventually settled on. He crossed his arms across his belly. “Thanks for, uh, talking to me about it.” 

Minhee huffed. “Of course, loser. Who else could bear to live with me? You’re the only one who would forgive me playing ATEEZ around the house all day and plastering our walls with their photos?”

Chuckling, San did not honour her with a reply. Then, he turned to her slowly. “Wait, you didn’t come down here literally so that you could just ask me that, did you?” 

Minhee pushed him. “What? No? I had at least one other reason.” 

San looked at her, raising an eyebrow. “And that was…” 

Minhee pushed herself into a seated position and pushed around in her pocket to pull out her pocket. She pulled San, up, too, and showed her the loading screen of her email. Groaning, she minimised the screen and put her phone away again. “I forget how crap the signal is up here.” 

“So? Your second reason?” San prompted, disregarding her comment. 

Minhee swivelled around and grinned at him. “A concert.” 

San stared at her, blankly. “A concert,” he repeated. 

“And a fansign.” 

Still confused, San watched her gesture around desperately as though somehow hoping to rejig his memories. 

“ATEEZ has a concert in Jinju next week!” she said, grinning so brightly that it threatened to blind him. “It was announced months ago. Their Korean tour? Ring any bells?” 

Like a tonne of bricks, the conversation he had shared with Wooyoung and Seonghwa all those months ago came crashing down on him.  _ So, it had gone ahead, and he hadn’t even thought about it _ . He forced a smile. 

Minhee tapped his shoulder, reprimanding. “I’m not even surprised you didn’t know,” she said, sighing dramatically. “That was why I was going to show you my tickets.” 

“Your tickets?” 

She nodded proudly and swung an arm around his shoulders. “You see, Sannie, I managed to secure two tickets for both events. I had to call in a few favours, but it was totally worth it. So now we can  _ finally _ attend an event together and, even better, it’s in Seonghwa’s home city.” She pretended to swoon over his lap. “It’s going to be awesome.” 

San’s heart was doing gymnastics in his chest as he pulled her into a hug. “Seriously? Minhee? Oh, my God.” He sounded breathless, even to himself, as he spoke. “When is it?”

“The 18th. It’s basically your Christmas and birthday present rolled into one,” she replied, pulling away from him. “I thought you could do with a pick-me-up,” she said, tapping her forehead like a character in a children’s TV show. 

“Thank you,” San managed to stammer out, “Minhee, what the hell. How am I ever meant to top this?” 

Minhee shrugged, practically glowing. “You’re not. It’s just another reason why I’m the best cousin ever, right?” 

“Right,” San said, still trying to wrap his mind around it. 

“You admitted it!” Minhee shrieked. She stood up and tackled him from behind. “You admitted it! I win the title!” 

San rolled over and began to grapple with her in return, dissolving into laughter as he did so. For the first time in ages, he felt light again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Anyway! Hope you enjoyed :D As always, let me know what you thought bc that always makes me really happy, come talk to me on twt about anything, and see you next chapter hopefully!
> 
> WARNINGS: Minor character death


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I ... Did it ??? An update within a week ???? Wow, are we dreaming ??? Possibly. I'll do my best for next week but no promises xx

The city was alive when they arrived. By the entrance to the hall where the fansign was being held, numerous fans milled around dressed in their favourite clothes and flawless makeup. San almost felt underdressed in his jeans and sweater, but Minhee exuded the well-practised aura of someone who had done this many times before. It was more of a comfort than San was ready to admit. 

With her camera bag hanging from her shoulder and phone clutched tightly in her hand, she could not wipe the grin off her face. Her hair, drawn tightly back in a ponytail, swung from side to side as she turned around in circles to look at everything. 

San hugged his backpack to his stomach. In his rush to get out of the door so they could get to Jinju as early as possible, he had thrown the few things he needed in a blind rush that morning. What he didn't already have at home he'd found in the city that morning. The corners of the album he had bought that morning dug into his arms. 

“Did you finish writing your questions?” Minhee asked as she flicked through her phone. 

Nodding, San unzipped his bag and reached inside. As he did, his fingers brushed against a thin piece of plastic. Curious, he pulled it out and stared at the ten-thousand won note for a moment. A cold wash passed through his stomach. _He knew exactly where that had come from._ His throat tightened as he bit his lip.  

Minhee looked up after a few seconds without a response. “Congratulations,” she said, tone dry, “You found enough money to buy a bus fair home tonight.” 

San did not reply as he pushed the note into a pocket in his jeans. A part of him wondered if he should give it to Minhee in the name of at least partially honouring his agreement with Wooyoung, but he did not. He would deal with it later, he decided, forcing the thought out of his head and returning to dragging his album out. 

The first thing he had done when he got to Jinju that morning was to go to a shop to buy the new ATEEZ album. He never bought a copy of their most recent release, and he badly needed one if he was going to turn up at a fansign. Admittedly, he could have done it in Namhae and under any normal circumstances, he would have. However, the thought had not even occurred to him until that morning on the bus as exactly where they were going sunk in. 

After finding a copy of the album—in itself, not a hard task— he and Minhee had found a cheap hole-in-the-wall place for lunch. San had taken the opportunity to scribble a question for each of the seven members on a set of sticky notes he borrowed from Minhee. 

By the time they reached the hall, San was almost shaking in a mixture of excitement and nervousness. He could not help but wonder if Wooyoung and Seonghwa would even remember him, and assuming they did, if they would mention that chance encounter. He could not help but wish they would, particularly Wooyoung, with his bright voice and star-studded eyes. 

(He still had not told Minhee about that afternoon in the coffee shop,  _ but _ , he told himself,  _ that was in-line with what Seonghwa and Wooyoung had asked him to do, anyway.  _ He tried not to worry about it too much because otherwise, he knew it would drive his conscience insane). 

A man soon began ushering them all inside and a few other staff directed people to their seats. It was a lot busier than San had been expected; he had never really thought about how many fans ATEEZ had in the area, but for some reason, he had not quite realised there were as many as had turned up. 

“They really blew up in the past few months,” Minhee whispered as they took their seats. Their view of the stage, skewed slightly to the left side, was unobstructed. “Just in time for their tour, right? And now they’ll hopefully get even more popular as more people get to see them!” 

San nodded, distracted, still watching the stage. Three, long tables were positioned end to end with tablecloths covering them and seven chairs spaced evenly behind. It was all very standard, as far as San could tell from the minimal other fansigns he had attended. 

Just as it had been in those times, San felt dazed as he watched the members come out on stage and do their fan-sign routine. He had forgotten how loud the crowd was. A smirk worked its way onto his face as he, out of the corner of his eye, saw Minhee switch between a professional fan-site owner and a fan mid-breakdown. He had never been with her at an actual event and, suddenly, he knew he would have to find a way to do this again. 

In the week since she had arrived in Namhae, she had spent the afternoons after San got off work catching him up on what ATEEZ had been doing in the months since he had last closely followed them. 

In fact, Minhee had been an all-around positive influence. With someone new in the house, even San’s mother looked a little more alive as she bustled around to take care of her. She was more lively than San had seen since they left the hospital. 

Minhee tapped his elbow and San jolted out of his daze. She gave him a cautious thumbs-up, and San grinned and returned the gesture. 

He returned to looking at the stage. He was unable to pull his eyes away from Wooyoung, with his oversized shirt and bubbly laughter that cut through everything else. San's heart was in his throat as he stared, completely transfixed. 

Without the responsibility of taking photos, San was free to lose himself in Wooyoung’s world. His dancing, the way he flicked his hair back from his eyes, the little skip in his step as he walked around the stage. It was mesmerising in a way he had not realised before. 

Before he knew it, he and Minhee were being ushered into lines to get ready for the signing. San grabbed his album and cradled it to his chest. The line they stood in snaked around the room, surrounded by a cloud of chatter, giggles and camera shutter clicks. 

Minhee stood in front of him, nervously straightening her skirt. She tugged on San’s jumper. “Does my hair look okay?” 

“It’s fine,” San replied, glancing her up and down. “It’s not like they’ll care, anyway.” 

Shoving his arm, Minhee glared. “We’re in Seonghwa’s hometown! I have to look my absolute best for him.” 

San gently pushed her back. “You look fine. I’m sure any straight man would find you absolutely adorable.” 

“First of all, you’re my cousin,  _ ew _ ,” Minhee’s lip curled in a smirk, “Second of all, you’re gay. You are the worst possible judge of that.” 

San shrugged and scratched the back of his head with a smile. “Well, you asked. Not my fault you don’t like the answer.” 

It seemed all too short a time until they were standing at the front of the line. San flicked his gaze between Minhee walk up the stairs and the album as he struggled to find Yeosang’s page, the first person in line. 

And then, he was walking up those stairs and sitting down in front of Yeosang. His chest was tight like someone was sitting on it. 

“San, yeah?” Yeosang said, accepting the album from him. “Minhee said you were next in line before. Plus-” he looked down the table conspiratorially “-Wooyoung was really excited that he thought you might be here today.” 

A lump grew in San’s throat that he struggled to swallow. “Really?” he croaked. His belly writhed. 

Yeosang nodded, smirking. “Don’t tell him I said that, though. He might kill me in the hotel tonight if you do.”

San managed to grin in response. “No promises.” 

There was a second where Yeosang looked almost surprised, and then he fell back in his chair with his hand over his heart. “You’d betray me?” he laughed, continuing a dramatic reenactment of that pain. 

“Perhaps,” San said. 

Yeosang chuckled and then there was a moment of silence as he signed the page and scribbled a few things on the post-it note question. ( _ Rank the members on who’s the best at hugs _ ).

Slowly but surely, San shuffled down the line and his nerves began to settle. All of them were able to remember his name, but he imagined that was courtesy of Minhee rather than them actually knowing. It had been over six months, after all. 

When he reached Seonghwa, he received an amused grin. 

“I didn’t see any leaks about ATEEZ’s Korea tour before it was officially released, so good job. You managed to keep it secret.” 

San, much calmer than he had been with Yeosang, cocked his head to the side. “Did you expect me to fail?” His stomach was turning but it was more in pleasant enthusiasm than panic mixed into discomfort. 

Seonghwa glanced down at the album and seemed to be hiding a sly expression. “No. Wooyoung trusted you, therefore I did, too.” 

Shocked into silence, San did not speak as Seonghwa wrote. Gone was that pleasant concoction of emotions, only to be replaced with needle pricks all over his skin. He could feel pimples appearing up his arms. “He… trusts me?” he repeated, slowly, completely unable to believe his own words. 

“He was very insistent on it,” Seonghwa replied. His face betrayed nothing of what he did or did not think about that.

San nodded, processing what exactly those words meant. 

“I suppose that day we met, you were finding things to send to Minhee that she then gave to me? I should thank you for that, too,” Seonghwa continued as he set his pen down on the table. 

Still preoccupied with what Seonghwa had said before, San half-listened to the question. “How did you know?” he asked, hoping that would be an acceptable answer. 

Seonghwa raised an eyebrow in an artful way that only he seemed to be able to pull off. “I watched you buy them, and then Minhee gave those same things to me literally two weeks later.” 

“Ah, yes, that would do it,” San said under his breath.

Seonghwa gave him a relaxed smile and what could have been a soft huff of laughter. “It was a sweet gesture, really. Thank you for helping with that. It means a lot when people care.” 

With that, San blinked at him and was hurried along further down the line to Mingi and then onto Wooyoung. For a dreadful moment, they made eye contact and San thought that maybe Wooyoung  _ had _ forgotten that day a few months ago. 

Then, Wooyoung’s face cracked into a smile. He took the album, already turned to the correct page, and disregarded it as he grinned at San. “You made it!” he cheered quietly, “I was worried that you might have had work or something and wouldn’t be able to.” 

“Minhee organised it.” San choked on the words as he lost himself in Wooyoung. The voice felt so familiar and despite knowing that they were on two very different levels—idol and fan—it felt like they could just have been friends for a second. Or, maybe that was San’s mind playing into fantasies. Regardless, any semblance of self-control he had maintained talking to the other six members had been thrown out the window. 

Wooyoung grinned. “Well, then. You’ll have to tell Minhee that I send my thanks. It’s really good to see you again.” Maybe it  _ was _ San just being slightly delusional because that almost sounded completely genuine. 

There was a moment of silence wherein Wooyoung filled out his question and signature on the album. He hesitated a split-second over the question and then scribbled a few words that San could not read behind Wooyoung’s shielding hand. Before he could even glimpse it, Wooyoung had closed the album and slid it back across the table to San. 

“Have you been well?” Wooyoung asked. His eyes glittered and a soft smile sat on his lips. 

San gave an answer somewhere between a nod and a shrug. “It’s really nice to be here,” he settled on.

Wooyoung held his hands out and let San rest his own against them.  _ Standard fansign routine _ , San reminded himself as he tried not to think about how soft Wooyoung’s skin was. 

“I was waiting to see you today,” Wooyoung said. “Seriously, Jinju was the spot I was most excited about. Kind of because Seonghwa’s mum cooks the best Jinju-bibimbap you’ve ever tasted, but also to see you again! It’s been way too long since I found you at any event.” 

San could not find the words to respond. _Found_. The word burnt his chest. His fingers tensed against Wooyoung’s and he struggled to maintain eye-contact. A million different things were racing around his head and none of them were coherent enough to actually come together to form a sentence. 

Wooyoung’s grin did not fade as he linked their fingers together and moved them back and forth. “You’re coming to the concert tomorrow, right?” 

Blinking himself back to reality, San forced himself to nod as he agreed. 

“If you’re coming to Jinju early… Well…” Wooyoung shook his head. “Ah, nevermind. I’m really glad that we were able to come down. It’s really nice to see you again, San.” 

San could have cried there and then, but it was like the brainpower needed to actually process those sort of thoughts was lagging two minutes behind. He felt a staff member tapping on his shoulder, but did not look back at them. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said at long last. 

Wooyoung nodded. “I really hope so.” He let go of their hands and,  _ God _ , San really was going crazy because it felt a reluctant departure on more than just his part as he left the table with his album clenched in his arms. 

Minhee was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs and immediately elbowed him. “You had some next-level fan interactions going on there,” she said, eyes wide as though she could not believe what she had seen. 

“Please tell me I wasn’t just dreaming,” San muttered, staring down at his hands. His skin tingled where he had touched Wooyoung. 

Minhee moaned. “Seonghwa was speaking in satoori.  _ Satoori _ . And he seemed so relaxed back here in Jinju. If it is a dream, I don’t want to wake up.”

“Neither,” San said, breathless. 

He was still in a state of utter disorientation as they left the concert hall and walked back to the bus terminal. He cradled the album to his chest like it was a baby as they climbed on and began the trip back to Namhae. 

The bus was the slowest route back but, seeing as they were doing this trip two days in a row, it was by far the most cost-effective. Besides, San could put up with the trip when he had Minhee by his side and an album of unexplored messages and signatures to pore over yet. It was made even sweeter by the fact that they were practically the only ones on board, and so could choose a relatively empty spot to talk freely. 

Minhee opened her album first and flicked through the pages with trembling fingers. Each time she got to a new question, she squeaked and covered her mouth with a hand before getting San to read the answers. She was practically sobbing by the time they got to Seonghwa. 

“Your turn,” she choked out as they finally made it through the last question. 

San took a halting breath and began to slowly turn the pages. Most of them were untouched by signatures, but then they began to reach the questions. 

Minhee frowned and put her hand down across Hongjoong's face when they reached his question. “Is it just me, or have all of these answers been skewed towards Wooyoung?" She nudged San. "Best hugger? Wooyoung. Best coffee maker? Wooyoung. Funniest member? Wooyoung. And, we all know at least that last one definitely isn’t true.” 

San had noticed it and he was trying very hard not to think too much about it, or to remember what Yeosang had said about Wooyoung being excited to see him. It was one thing to hear it from Wooyoung himself, but when _the_ _others_ were saying it, too, it seemed to take on a whole new level of significance. 

“Wooyoung is totally a funny member,” San murmured, having registered only the tail end of Minhee’s words.

Minhee rolled her eyes. “Sure, but Yeosang  _ literally _ exists.” 

“Well…” San did not finish and flicked to the next page. 

A few minutes later, Wooyoung’s page came up. There was a long silence as they both stared at the post-it, too shocked to actually say anything. Then, Minhee turned to San robotically and gasped, “Is that what I think it is?” 

Completely mute, San could only nod. Those words Wooyoung had scribbled on the page before were not words at all, but numbers. Messy, but perfectly legible, in the distinct pattern of a mobile number. 

“Oh, my God, we really are dreaming,” Minhee whispered, voice suspiciously faint. “Pinch me.” 

San was frozen, reading the numbers over and over again. Just above them, he finally noticed a little note.  _ Call me! _

“San, I said pinch me!” Minhee said in a voice that could have been a shriek if it was slightly louder. She gave up and punched him in the upper arm instead. 

“Ow!” San whined, rubbing the spot, but not retaliating like he usually would have. _He had Wooyoung’s phone number written in his album_. And there was no way of mistaking it because the signature on the same page was definitely addressed to him and the post-it note was written in his handwriting. 

Minhee wailed. “We’re not dreaming.” She bent closer to look at the number. “It doesn’t even look fake.” 

She looked between it and San for a silent minute. “You have to text him,” she finally said. “Now! Do it now!” 

“What?” San yelped, “I can’t text him  _ now _ . That just looks desperate!” 

“You’ve been given Wooyoung’s, the idol you've been crushing on for the best part of a year, phone number, and you’re worried about looking desperate.” She really did look pale now. “He’s the one who put his phone number in your album and asked you to call him!” 

San still did not move so Minhee pulled his phone out of his loose coat pocket and pressed it into his hands. “Do it, now,” she said, enunciating each syllable with clarity that had no chance of being misunderstood. 

As San unlocked his phone and began to slowly type the number into the New Message section on Kakaotalk, he heard Minhee sigh. “You’re literally out here living a fan’s dream and you can’t even type a message.” 

“I’m apparently writing a message to Wooyoung. _The Wooyoung_. What the fuck am I meant to say?” San hissed. 

Minhee shrugged, bending closer over his shoulder. “Just say hi or something, I don’t know. He can deal with it when he checks his phone.” 

“Well, I don’t want to look like an idiot, do I?” 

“Just-. Literally just say hi and your name. That’s a perfectly reasonable response to someone  _ writing their number in your album _ .” His voice drifted into hysteria at the end of the sentence, almost painfully high right in San’s ear. 

San nodded. “Fine, fine. I’m doing it.” 

 

> << **You**
> 
> Hi, Wooyoung. This is San! I think you put your number in my album before?
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Wooyoung**  
> 
> San!! Hi!! I didn’t think you’d actually text :D 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Wooyoung**  
> 
> Did you enjoy the fansign hehehe
> 
>  
> 
> << **You**
> 
> It was fun. It’s been a while since i went to a fan event of any sort  
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Wooyoung**  
> 
> :'( 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Wooyoung**
> 
> I’m glad you could come to this one, then!
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Wooyoung**
> 
> I’ll have to keep an eye out for you in the audience tomorrow! 
> 
>  
> 
> << **You**
> 
> i don’t even know where i’ll be sitting yet... ? 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Wooyoung**  
> 
> Hehehe >:) 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Wooyoung**  
> 
> I’ll find you, don’t worry
> 
>  
> 
> << **You**
> 
> :o 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Wooyoung**  
> 
> Anyway! I have to go shower now bc otherwise jongho is going to steal all the hot water 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Wooyoung**  
> 
> D: 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **Wooyoung**
> 
> But... I’ll... talk to you after that ? 
> 
>  
> 
> >> **You**
> 
> uhh ,, sure ?! 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Let me know your thoughts if you have any -- feedback is literally the best motivation :D

**Author's Note:**

> Please come and yell about me about stuff on twitter! I love receiving messages haha
> 
> Twitter: [oonymay](https://twitter.com/oonymay)


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